No Cage Worse
by Mr. Penbrook
Summary: -"I couldn't control my actions, oh, but God, I was still aware." The experience of Jill Valentine, before, during and after the events chronicled in Resident Evil 5, from a first-person perspective. Please R&R! Rated T for violence and adult language.
1. Prologue: Locked In

_This is my first ever fan fiction. I didn't really intend for it to come out as long as it is, but I really wanted to explore every aspect and implication of what was done to Jill Valentine in Resident Evil 5, so it just kinda came out that way. I will be grateful to anyone who chooses to post a review. I have tried as much as possible to work within the established fiction of Resident Evil 5 and not to deviate or change any of the plot details or side information provided by the files and documents in the game; if anyone catches a mistake or oversight on my part I'll try to fix it._

_Please be aware that this entire story is pretty much one big Resident Evil 5 spoiler._

_Thanks, and I hope you enjoy "No Cage Worse."_

* * *

Prologue: Locked In

My name is Jill Valentine and this is my journal. Unfortunately, I have nothing to write with or to write on, and even if I did it wouldn't matter; my hands no longer do anything but the bidding of others. What I do have, for the time being, is perfect recall. Anything I experience, any sight, sound, smell, I can remember as though playing back a movie, and the same goes for my thoughts. I've tested this; I can actually "write" in my head, and "read back" what I've written no matter how much time has passed, as accurately as if it were written on a page. And so, this will have to do, although it is locked in my head and I am unable to speak unless expressly authorized to do so, and then only to say that which will help achieve my mission. I don't know if anyone will ever read this, but I feel a duty to record my experiences as accurately as possible, in the hope that one day others will know what I've seen and what I've done. It might save lives. If there are even lives to be saved.

I remember reading once about a rare medical condition called "locked in syndrome." It's usually caused by brain injury: head trauma or stroke. A patient afflicted with this horrible neurological disorder is completely paralyzed, beyond quadriplegia, although mentally the victim is in complete possession of her faculties. Usually, the only action the patient can voluntarily take is to blink her eyes, and that's if she's lucky. Can you imagine being trapped inside a useless body, unable to do anything at all except keep your eyeballs moist? I can. I guess the good news for me is that I'm not paralyzed - in fact my body is more capable than it's ever been. The bad news is that I have no control over anything it does: all I do is follow orders from others, no matter how repugnant, how horrific, how unforgivable the task.

The irony is that I have never felt more alive. My body is capable of feats of strength, acrobatics and endurance that the most hardened warrior could only dream of. My mind can calculate tactical possibilities that would elude the most skilled ninja. My senses can detect things beyond the range of normal human experience. I am ordered to crush a man's throat with my bare hands. I hear the breath trying to escape his closed airways; the pressure and volume of the sound tells me how close he is to suffocation. I feel the popping in his neck, knowing from pure tactile sensation the type and amount of destruction I've caused, which tells me how long he has to live. I smell the shifting aromas of his fear, from sour milk to vinegar the closer he is to death. And finally, I see the exact moment life leaves his eyes. All of it, every second, recorded in my memory with permanent clarity, never to be expunged or dulled with time. I do this because my greatest enemy tells me to, and I see no means of escape. My orders are clear and unambiguous: assist my master in the extermination of the human race as we know it. And I always, always obey my orders.


	2. I: Bioterror

I guess I should rewind a bit and provide some context. As far as my background, I'll skip the in-depth detail and hit the highlights. Crowing about my achievements is not the purpose of this journal.

As far back as I can remember, I wanted to find a way to be of service to humanity, to give something back. Sounds like such a boring old cliché, I know, but I can't help what I am. Growing up, I was good at anything athletic and was a bit of a tomboy – I was frequently injured on some misadventure and probably had more visits to the emergency room than to softball practice. By the time I graduated high school, I knew college wasn't for me, at least not yet – it just felt right for me to jump right into the Army the day I turned 18. For all my youth and inexperience, I did pretty well for myself – I was the youngest soldier ever recruited for the 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta (also known as Delta Force.) I can't say much about my time there, it's all pretty classified, but if you know anything about Delta, you know it's about as elite and secret as it gets. Near-total autonomy in the achievement of our mission, no uniforms, no regs regarding personal appearance other than "just be yourself" (the better to blend in and escape notice.) Sounds like an easy gig, but picture days on end without sleep while trying to survive under the toughest imaginable circumstances – fighting impossible odds to escape a hot spot with no support, no back-up, no extraction plan, all the while knowing that if you die there, your operation will be denied and you will be forgotten.

I had my fair share of dust-ups in Delta. I felt truly alive for the first time in my life, but a couple of years of that and you're ready for a change. I was stateside after a mostly successful South American operation, recuperating from a couple of broken bones in my hometown of Raccoon City and considering my options, when I was approached to become a member of a new local specialized police unit called STARS – Special Tactics And Rescue Service. This unit was formed to combat crimes outside of normal police jurisdiction – terrorism, occultism, anything that required a specialized and focused approach, utilizing skills they just don't teach at the police academy.

I was actually rather overqualified for the job; some of the STARS rooks had had minimal police training and were recruited on the basis of other skills. In fact, I think that may have been what tipped it for me. I thought of this band of nervous college graduates trying to face down some of the threats I'd encountered in Delta, and I dreaded the outcome. Maybe I could help. It seemed like important work, and it would keep me closer to my roots. I signed on.

It was good work for a while. My partner, Chris Redfield and I, were a near perfect match for the job – a well oiled machine, each of our skill sets a perfect complement to that of the other. We busted terror cells, slave rings, weapons trafficking operation. It felt good, knowing that I wasn't just making a difference, but I was protecting my own turf, my home. STARS Alpha Team was like a family I'd never known, not even in Delta.

It all fell apart, though, after an incident at a mansion in the Arklay Mountains. I'll skip the particulars as it is all well-documented elsewhere, for those with the clearance. I will say that what we saw, heard and fought in that place would drive most people insane, and to top it off, we found ourselves betrayed by our own commanding officer, Albert Wesker. Wesker was a secret operative for a mysterious and sinister corporation called Umbrella that was behind the whole terrible ordeal. We didn't shed many tears for Wesker when we saw him mutilated by a nightmare called The Tyrant, right before our eyes. Although later we would be vindicated, at the time, our story of death and madness was too outlandish, and STARS was disbanded.

It was Raccoon City that would pay the price for this.

For a while, I went it alone in Raccoon City. Chris and others went abroad to investigate the mysterious Umbrella corporation. I did what I could to find out about Umbrella's local operations, but the horrors from the mansion could not be contained; eventually they consumed Raccoon City and I was lucky to escape with my life before my hometown was nuked by the U. S. government.

I did not give up the fight, and neither did Chris. The years passed as we chased leads, shut down bio-terror cells, and searched for opportunities to organize and build forces that could stand up to Umbrella. Finally, in 2003, we teamed up and went to Russia, where we were able to destroy the main Umbrella headquarters, taking out some of their deadliest creations. The corporation was exposed for what it was and disbanded, its leadership prosecuted or sought as international criminals.

But there are no tidy outcomes in life. Umbrella's research into biological and organic weaponry could not be contained; it was just too valuable to too many people with bad intentions. As a result of the threats posed by this horrible research, an organization called the Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance was formed as a joint venture of the United States, the UN Security Council, and the Global Pharmaceutical Consortium. Chris and I, finally vindicated, were recruited as charter members of this organization. Our initial duties were to advise and train local law enforcement and security agencies around the world to cope with the threat of bio-terror, but dishearteningly, it soon became clear that the threat was too great for us not to beef up the BSAA as a true fighting force in its own right and take an active role in fighting the spawn of Umbrella head on. Chris and I were the tip of the spear; we were recognized as the best of the best, relentless in our pursuit and ruthless in our execution. If things hadn't changed, who knows what we might have accomplished on that trajectory?


	3. II: Incident At The Spencer Estate

But it did change – as it turned out, I was not destined to be a member of the BSAA after all.

Chris and I were following a lead regarding some research that had leaked out of the ruins of the Umbrella Corporation. We went to the cliff-side mansion of Ozwell Spencer, the founder of Umbrella, to question him. It appeared that no one was home, but when we heard a scream of agony, we burst through the door. Clearing the place room by room, we saw the lights on upstairs, coming from Spencer's huge study. Chris and I nodded at each other to proceed. As this had been intended as a peaceful interrogation, we hadn't brought the proper provisions and were less prepared than we would have liked – a couple of flash bangs would have put me more at ease as we entered the study.

The study where, silhouetted against the lightning, we saw the last person we expected or wanted to see: Albert Wesker. Wesker, our traitorous superior from STARS, working all along in secret as an Umbrella operative with his own insidious motivations. Standing over the fallen, broken body of Spencer, sprawled out in a spreading pool of his own blood.

We ordered Wesker to freeze, but he made his move and left us with no choice but to open fire. I'd never seen anything like it. Together, Chris and I should have been more than enough to subdue an unarmed man, even one whose training matched ours. But the way Wesker moved – he was almost too fast for the naked eye to see. He was all over us, his strength and speed making him unstoppable. He used Chris as a punching bag; me, he used to smash a bookcase.

Before we knew what had hit us, I was sprawled on the ground, dazed, throbbing and disarmed. My quick assessment was that he had broken at least one of my ribs and possibly given me a concussion. I looked up to see Wesker lifting Chris by the throat. I knew then that Chris had seconds to live; I knew also that once Chris was dead, Wesker would turn his attention to me, and alone I had no chance of facing this now-superhuman threat force. Even if I had wanted to run, which I would never do, Wesker would catch me effortlessly; even if I tried to fight, Wesker would make a hole in me the way he had with Spencer. I did all this math in my head and I came to one inescapable conclusion.

No matter what happened here tonight, I was going to die.

But Wesker was distracted, which gave me an opening, a slim chance of doing something. If I was to die, let it be for something. Let Wesker's madness come to an end. Let Chris carry on the fight. Let my life matter.

It sounds strange, but I felt no fear, no dread, as I embraced death in that moment. Chris was my partner through ordeals too nightmarish to imagine; our feelings for each other were, well, let's just call them complicated. I would say that on some level I knew that I'd rather die than try to live without Chris, even if it were possible for me to survive this. I would say that, but it might force me to admit to myself the true nature of my feelings for Chris. So I won't say it.

Bracing myself for the pain of my broken ribs, I made my move. This time it was Wesker's turn not to know what hit him. I tackled him at full speed, grabbing him around the torso and holding him with all my strength. Momentum carried us right through the bay window, out into the rainy night. I heard Chris screaming my name as Wesker and I plummeted toward the rocks below. Then there was an explosion of pain, and then there was nothing.


	4. III: Darkness And Beyond

As it turned out, death was not at all what I expected. At some point, awareness began to return to me - not what you might call full consciousness, just a vague sense of existing. It was dark and quiet, and so very cold. It felt like I was at the bottom of the freezing ocean, being crushed by the pressure, yet somehow not drowning or succumbing to hypothermia. Time had no meaning in this state, and I had only the most passing sense of who I was and what I had been in life. Was this hell? Hadn't I done enough? Had I crossed some line in the execution of my duties that somehow left my soul too stained? Where was my reward, or my rest, or even my oblivion?

I cannot say how long I was trapped in this frigid, black sea, but it felt like many lifetimes of passing in and out of awareness.

Then, one day, there was a change. I was moving. Moving forward. I could not see or hear anything, but I could feel the motion around me. I could hear a hum, the grinding of metal and machines, seeming to emanate from everywhere at once. Then light started to pierce my dark existence. I couldn't actually see anything, just a blur of bright orange noise. Finally, the motion stopped.

Suddenly, the world exploded into my awareness. I was not dead after all. I heard a grind, felt an immediate loss of crushing pressure around me, and realized that the darkness was pouring away from me in torrents. And I heard voices, and saw fuzzy silhouettes in the rough shape of men standing in front of me, mumbling.

"She'll be all right," one of them said.

My head slumped forward and I started coughing up fluid. I realized my lungs were filled with it. Every breath was pain, followed by the choking expulsion of more and more viscous goo.

"Choking is good, coughing is good. This is how we get the air back in your lungs."

Things were starting to come into focus. I had a vague sense of where I was. I was in some sort of metallic pod. The front of the pod was up above me like a gull-wing car door. My new friends and I were in a vast chamber of some sort.

I tried to move, but I was held in place by restraints of some kind. In any case, long unused muscles, though seemingly not atrophied, were not very cooperative. My head hung limply, and I was unable to lift it – my hair might as well have weighed a hundred pounds.

Once I could breathe air again, the choking was followed by flavorless vomiting – seemed like I was throwing up the same stuff I'd been breathing. It didn't have that acid sting and it seemed mostly clear.

Finally, the heaving subsided. One of the men stuck a tube into my nose, some kind of suction device like dentists use. It sucked fluid painfully out of my nose and sinuses, followed by my mouth. My breathing was a bit labored and my stomach and throat burned, but finally free of the fluid, I felt distinctly less uncomfortable. I was also warming up – my extremities had been tingling and now burned, like running your cold hands under warm water after shoveling snow.

With a hiss, the restraints withdrew. Unable to do anything else, I slumped into the waiting arms of the shadow men in front of me. Slipping my naked body into a hospital gown, they transferred me to a wheeled gurney, locking me into place with more restraints - wrists, ankles, waist, neck and head. Like a side of beef retrieved from a meat locker, they started wheeling me away.

I was confused and terrified beyond my wits. I had many questions, but no voice yet to ask them. They pushed me along for a while, through elevators and hallways. My training kicked in and I tried to sort out anything I could about where I was. I couldn't tell much, immobile and unable to make out details, but I had a sense that we were deep underground - something about the quality of the air and the way sound carried, as well as the curvature of the walls for additional strength against the immense pressure of the earth. Any other clues escaped me. I was barely coherent in my thinking yet.

Finally, I was wheeled into what seemed to be a medical facility of some kind and parked under some surgical lights. I felt a bump as the wheel brake was kicked into place, and my transporters left me alone.

_Okay, Jill. Shake it off. Get it together._ I didn't have time to be helpless. I pieced together my last real memories - the fight at the Spencer Estate, the fall, the crushing pain. It seemed impossible for me to have escaped that fall without serious injury. I tried to assess my physical state as best I could. I wiggled my toes. I couldn't see what they did, but the feeling was generally right, if sluggish – not that far off from what I might feel after trudging through miles of snow. Same with my arms and hands. I tried one by one to get all my muscle groups working. Finally I started flexing my face and jaw muscles, like a student in some kind of acting workshop. I tried to speak.

I heard a drunken whisper say "My name... is... Jill... Valentine..." Better than nothing. Progress.

Before I could turn my thoughts to escape, though, I was joined by someone else. A face leaned in over me, still too fuzzy to make out with long disused eyes. But the voice was unmistakable.

"Welcome back, Jill Valentine."

It was Wesker. Goddamnit, it was Albert Wesker.

He was perusing a notebook computer. "Very good news. You seem to be in excellent health, despite your injuries at the estate and your rather lengthy nap."

I tried to speak, the words stumbling over each other in a pile of questions. "Injuries..."

My eyes seemed to be adjusting as I could make out Wesker's shark grin. "Oh yes, extensive injuries. Let's see, forty-eight broken bones. A rather bad concussion, which would have been far worse if you'd hit your head against a rock instead of my knee. Perforated kidney. Punctured lung. Lacerations everywhere. Internal bleeding. Shock. Had you been awake, the pain would have been unbearable. Luckily, as you may have gathered, my own resilience rather exceeds yours; that fall was nothing to me. It was fortunate for you that I am so well-trained. I was able to keep you alive long enough to get you to some men I trust, who kept you comatose as they dealt with your injuries. Excellent doctors, those. Didn't even leave you with a scar."

I tried to absorb all this. "You... saved me?" I whispered.

"Of course! I'm not some sort of monster!" Wesker protested in a way that somehow made me nervous as he set aside the computer to focus his attention more directly on me.

My mind drifted back to the other thing he mentioned. "Nap... sleep..."

That grin of his went even wider. "Well, yes, now we get to the fun part. I lied to you rather boldly just now. You see, I am some sort of monster. Oh, you may have destroyed Umbrella, you and that self-righteous boy scout of a partner of yours, but the work continues. In fact, we are on the verge of an enormous breakthrough. So, after we got you back to fighting trim, I put you into a cryogenic sleep. It works like this: we stuff you into a pod filled with a breathable, nutrient-rich fluid. We lower your body temperature to near-hypothermic levels and slow your metabolism to a crawl. In essence, time nearly stops for you."

I tried to absorb all that he was telling me. How long had I been in cold storage?

"You see, I thought it would be rather fitting to make you the very first test subject for my work – for project Uroboros."

"Uro…"

"Quiet now, I have the floor. Yes, I kept you safely stored away, like a 20 year old scotch I was saving for that perfect day. Can you believe you've been in storage for two whole years?"

_Two years? Oh my God… _

I tried to process this revelation. Two years of my life, gone. It was 2008. And if I hadn't been rescued yet, help was not coming. I had almost certainly been declared dead.

As I reeled from the hopelessness of my situation, Wesker continued.

"And so it went. I was happy to keep you in the back of the fridge, but something has changed, Jill, oh yes, something that necessitated our interrupting your beauty sleep. You see, while you were all tucked in for your long winter's nap, we detected some abnormalities in you. Unusual fluctuations in your readings. Luckily, our set-up is very sophisticated, so we were able to run some tests on you without disturbing your rest. And do you know what we found?

"The T-virus.

"Yes, it seems that when you were infected in Raccoon city, the anti-viral you were given did not eliminate the virus from your system, but rather subdued it. I believe the anti-viral actually taught your body how to fight it. But when we put you to sleep, we put your immune system to sleep, and in this dormant state the T-virus started to… multiply. Luckily, it wasn't too severe, due to the unfavorable conditions. So we tweaked the controls a bit, got your immune system turned back on to a certain degree, and watched. And you managed to subdue the infection again.

"It was all quite fascinating. We ran more tests, and discovered that your body is saturated with extremely powerful T-virus antibodies. The implications of this are staggering, Jill. My project, Uroboros, is inspired by an Umbrella project that never got past the initial stages, which involved a viral symbiote that, unfortunately, is as deadly as it is powerful. Its potential to transform human DNA is, unfortunately, hindered by its destructive force. The human body cannot tolerate what Uroboros asks of it. It's a quick death, and rather messy.

"But with your antibodies, I might be able to alter Uroboros in such a way that its destructive qualities are held in check… and we will be able to see just what Uroboros can achieve.

"It does seem, unfortunately, that you would not make a suitable test subject for Uroboros, as you would be immune to it. But the secrets locked within that body of yours could advance the Uroboros project by years, perhaps decades! Funny how things work out, isn't it?"

I couldn't stand to hear that wicked voice of his any longer. "Wesker… you make me sick…"

He only laughed. "Well then, its fortunate that your immune system is so remarkable, isn't it? Now don't be down, Jill, it's not all bad news. No more sleepy-time for you. I'm sure you will find your new accommodations rather more pleasant, although I doubt the research we must perform on you will be to your liking.

"You should start to get your strength back soon. Cryogenic hibernation is very effective at preserving physical integrity. Once you warm up and all your systems are back online, as it were, you'll find that there was very little atrophy or degeneration. Although there is one rather notable cosmetic side effect, but then, don't they say gentlemen prefer blondes?

"All right, I think that about covers it. Some very nice doctors will come in to make sure you're in good shape, and then you can have yourself a meal and some rest."

"Fuck you, Wesker. Fuck you." My voice was nice and strong for that one. I'm not usually one to curse much, but the occasion seemed to call for it.

The shark grinned at me again. "Such gratitude – see if I save your life next time!"

And with that, he left.

As promised, the doctors came in and gave me as complete a physical work-up as they could, given my lack of energy to cooperate. They had to remove the restraints; I did not try to fight or protest, I just went along with it. I figured that if they were there to make sure I was in good shape, it could only be a help to me when it came time to make a play.

My blood was drawn, my chest and back were stethoscoped, my knees lightly hammered and my eyes puffed with blasts of air. I was scoped, pulled and prodded. Finally, satisfied, they had a tech load me into a wheelchair, strap me in with full restraints, and wheel me out. He was accompanied by two armed guards as he took me to what appeared to be a very high-tech detention facility, with a shatterproof translucent front walls reinforced concrete side walls and floor, and heavy-duty metal fixtures – sink and toilet. I doubted anything would be in there that would help me escape. Inside the cell, I was helped out of the chair and into a bed that was marginally more comfortable than a block of stone. The trio withdrew and the door hissed shut behind them.

_Okay, Jill, sit up._

My strength and coordination were returning rapidly – I wasn't quite up to standing on my own yet, but sitting up and using my arms and hands did not pose a problem. And so I sat up, examining my surroundings.

I saw a neatly folded stack of white clothing next to me. Shaking them out, I found a loose white V-neck shirt and loose white pants, on top of a pair of cheap white slippers. My prison uniform - marginally better than an orange jumpsuit. I shrugged out of the gown and got dressed. Didn't help much with the chill of every surface in the cell, but it was better than nothing.

My vision was becoming clearer all the time, and I tried to survey my surroundings in more detail. Armed guards everywhere. Conspicuous black glass hemispheres advertising ubiquitous surveillance. Nothing that could be weaponized or even loosened anywhere in my cell. When it came to defeating locks, I was nothing short of a master, but in this case, my options were decidedly limited – if I had a move to make, it would not be in this place.

And it certainly would not be tonight. As much as I loathed the notion, I needed sleep and it couldn't wait. Through training and experience, under optimal conditions I can go almost a week without sleep. But neither my training nor my experience had included extended cryo-statis. I figured I was as safe as I would ever be in this place, and even had it been possible, staying awake offered me no advantages. Once I came to this conclusion, sleep wasn't a choice I made; it was just something washed over me. It was good: I was not drowning, I was not freezing, I was not being slowly crushed to death. I was getting some approximation of actual restorative rest. For a time, the darkness claimed me again and I was fine with that.


	5. IV: Fertile Delta

A buzz and a clunk awakened me. I had a brief panic of wondering where I was and how I'd gotten there before it all came back to me. There was no way for me to know the time, but the fluorescent lights throughout the detention center were powering up, which to me felt like "lights on" in prison. Probably morning.

I saw a metal tray and a cup on the floor near the door, next to a small hatch. The cup appeared to be full of water, and the tray contained a stack of thin gray squares. I had the sense that this was food of some kind, some sort of MRE survival ration, the kind you get on field ops – maximum calories, minimum flavor. I'd eaten that way before, so I was sure that whatever this was I could choke it down. I doubted it was toxic; it could have been drug-laced, but I figured the only way out was through. If they wanted drugs in me, they'd find a way to make it happen, and this would be the least unpleasant method of administering them.

I saw no point in rebelling against my captors by declining nutrition. Time to try out my legs. Hands supporting me, I slowly stood up, my body feeling way stronger than it had the day before. Standing was fine, and so was walking. I crouched down to pick up the tray, but it wouldn't budge. I saw that, by design, it was held in place by the hatch. Not a surprising design – I would have found a way to weaponize that tray and they knew as much.

I grabbed the cardboard cakes in one hand and tried to lift the cup with the other, but that was bolted down, too; in fact, it was part of the tray. The hell? I noticed there was a sort of straw built into the side of the cup. _Yeah, I get it._ I sighed and sat down on the floor next to the tray, eating the cakes as quickly as possible. They were by far the worst thing I'd ever eaten - they tasted like deck stain. How I managed to get through that meal, I still don't know, but was I glad when it was over. It made my eyes water. I eyed the cup and decided to hell with the indignity. I got on all fours, put my lips around the straw and sucked the cup dry, quite certain someone somewhere in the facility was watching with amusement. _Fuck 'em._

It seemed like someone was waiting for me to finish, because just as I got up from drinking the water, I heard a hissing sound all around me in my cell. I looked around and looked up, and saw thin jets of nearly invisible gas shooting out of small nozzles in the ceiling. Not having much to work with, I stood on the bed and tried to block the nozzles with my discarded hospital gown. There were too many nozzles to block, though, and the gown was too porous to do much good. Giving up on blocking the gas, I held my breath as long as I could, but your body just won't let you suffocate it, and I eventually had to take in gasping lungfuls of air.

I started to feel a tingle in my hands and feet. I tried wiggling my fingers, but the movement was minimal and erratic – soon after, my hands just hung limply at my wrists. I couldn't stand, couldn't grab anything for support. I slumped to the ground like a sack of wet rags, ending up partially curled up, lying on my side. Completely paralyzed.

I tried to quell the terror welling up inside me. _Steady, Jill,_ I told myself. _Panic's no good. Just go along for the ride and figure out what's up._

Soon, a pair of armed guards entered my cell. They were followed by a pair of medical technicians pushing a wheelchair. One of them lifted my right hand between his thumb and forefinger, maneuvered it over my face, and then let it drop. It hit me with a stinging slap.

"She's good to go," he said, satisfied with my paralysis. I was loaded into the chair and strapped in. I wasn't sure what the restraints were for; probably just to keep the goods from getting damaged in transit.

I was wheeled back to the medical center that had been my first stop after cryo, and loaded onto the same table. Wesker strode in with that disgusting grin of his. He took his sunglasses off and looked at me in a way that could have been mistaken for tender if not worn by a sociopath.

"The gas we pump into your cell is infused with an accelerated form of tetrodotoxin. That's the venom of the puffer fish. Highly toxic, of course, but as they say, the dose makes the poison. In the right amount, with the right formulation, it's a powerful and temporary full-body paralytic. Unless we need your compliance for an extended period of time, you should expect to be fully functional again in no more than an hour. If we need more time than that, we will simply administer more of the tetrodotoxin periodically as required. And please don't worry about mishaps, as my doctors are the best in the world. You won't find yourself turning blue and going belly-up like some spoiled Japanese businessman showing off his extravagant taste.

"And now I will let the doctors get to work harvesting your remarkable immune system. As I understand it, we must filter the antibodies from your blood using a process similar to kidney dialysis. This part is not particularly unpleasant, but then I'm told we must subject you to blasts of therapeutic-level radiation to essentially reboot your immune system. This will allow the T-virus infection to attack you again, causing another full-body immune response, generating another full load of antibodies for us to harvest. Hopefully, we will find a way to generate your antibodies in the laboratory, once we unlock your secrets, but until then, you are our 'fertile delta.'

"Well," he said in the mockingly casual tone of an office worker who had by to chat with a colleague, "I suppose I'll let you get back to work." With his departure, the doctors approached and began to set up their filtration apparatus.

It was strange to discover that, as evil, as venal and corrupted as Wesker was, he seemed to be a man of his word. What is it about men like Wesker that compels them to tell you exactly what they're going to do before they do it? The antibody harvest was not particularly unpleasant, other than the total body paralysis that kept me on the verge of uncontrollable panic. Neither was the radiation treatment that followed – not much different from a full body MRI. I was back in my cell in under three hours, and fully mobile a half hour after that. I felt fine, but knew that wouldn't last long.

By the time my grey dinner cards had been slid through the hatch, I was delirious with fever. The aches in my every bone and joint kept me planted on the bed, hugging my knees to me, hot, sweaty and shivering. I only left the bed twice, to throw up. This was the T-virus, and it had me on the verge of wishing for death. I could feel it trying to change me.

I tried to lie down, tried to sleep, but all I found when I closed my eyes were fever dreams and nightmare visions flashing over and over. I saw my rotting hands stretched out in front of me, heard my inhuman growls as I lunged for survivors seeking safety in the devastation of Raccoon City, trying desperately to get close enough to bite them, to tear at their flesh. That it was a fate I'd already escaped made it no less unpleasant to bear. What if Wesker and his doctors were gambling with my resilience? What if I couldn't fight off this infection without another dose of the anti-viral Carlos had given me those years ago? What if they came to check on me in the morning and found only a shambling corpse? I'd long ago decided I could handle being dead, but undead, not so much.

But Wesker was right about this, too. It was a hell of a long 24 hours, but by the end of it, I woke up to find myself feeling surprisingly… alive. I was so famished even the deck stain bread tasted edible to me, and it had been stacking up as I missed the day's meals. How thoughtful of them.

And so it went. I was given two day's rest, and then harvested again, followed by another day of fever and pain. Each time, though, I found the illness diminish in intensity and duration. I'm guessing I went through about twenty cycles of this, and by the end of it, the T-virus was no more to me than a nasty cold.

Initially the doctors were puzzled by this, but they came up with a theory: the response to the T-virus mounted by my immune system was adapting, becoming stronger and more resilient, able to do more with less. The filtration was netting them fewer and fewer of the precious antibodies I produced, and the radiation was much less effective at initiating the "reboot" that caused the cycle to begin anew. Eventually they gave up; I wasn't worth the trouble.

It was an odd sort of victory. I was no longer useful for my antibodies, I realized, which meant I might no longer be useful at all. If the antibodies were a strong defense against this new Uroboros Wesker had mentioned, then I wasn't a good test subject for that either. So what use would he find for me?

I knew Wesker well enough to know that, in the pursuit of his demented dream, he would find new ways to make me suffer. And I was right.


	6. V: Power

Once I stopped producing the antibodies, I was all but forgotten for maybe two weeks. No paralytic gas, no medical procedures. Just a lot of downtime.

No one was interfering with me in my cell, so I tried to make the best use of the time that I could. Push-ups, crunches, running in place, even pull-ups and chin-ups were possible using a pipe coming out of the wall. Taking care of my body could only take up so much of my time, though, and there was a lot of time to burn. One summer when I was 15 I had spent some time at a retreat learning to meditate. I had too much energy and not enough focus at the time to find it useful, but with nothing better to do, I tried it again. I cleared my head of thoughts, of fear, of negative energy. It helped quite a bit. I hadn't realized how unfocused I was, how I'd let terror, helplessness and depression erode my discipline. I would never know when to expect the moment for which I would need to be working at 100% of my capacity. I wouldn't say I found peace that way, but I did find the strength to endure.

My solitude was interrupted one day by the now-familiar hiss of the tetrodotoxin gas. I guessed someone had thought of a use for me. Or, perhaps, I was going to be put back into cryo, to save them money on those gray slabs of pseudo-food. I wasn't sure yet which option would be less horrible.

I was wheeled to an empty test chamber of some kind. I was transferred from my usual wheelchair to a sturdier chair attached to the floor. This chair had its own restraints. It reminded me of Ol' Sparky.

The techs left me there, and all was silent. In a while, I started to regain control over my body. I tested the restraints – good and tight. I may have been a master of unlocking but I was not Houdini.

My motion seemed to trigger some activity outside the chamber. Some lights illuminated a console on the other side of the glass and I could see Wesker hovering over his pet technicians.

"Jill. You'll be happy to know that the antibodies you so thoughtfully produced for me have accelerated my timetable tremendously. Not only that, but we have developed a method of synthesizing them with a strain of genetically engineered bacteria. Too bad this didn't exist before the ruin of Raccoon City – think of all the people that could have been saved. Well, what's done is done.

"So, now I have more time to devote to some of my side projects. One of which you will be helping with today. In the course of our research on the Progenitor virus, we came across a compound that we call P30. It's a serum with some unusual properties. I believe you will find this experience most fascinating."

Two armed guards entered the chamber, followed by a doctor pushing a tray. Things glistened on it that I couldn't make out. "No! Wesker! What are you doing? Please!" I hated myself for begging, but it was almost involuntary; whatever was coming, it was the spawn of Umbrella, and thus the stuff of nightmares I didn't want to have.

The doctor was calm, collected and thoroughly professional. As though speaking for a recording, which I presume he was, he said. "Administering 20ccs of serum designated P30 at 10 hundred hours." As I tensed and struggled with futility, he wiped my neck with a moist piece of gauze that flooded my nose with the tart smell of alcohol. I tried to turn my head and pull away from him, but this just gave him an easier target as he jammed the syringe straight into my carotid artery.

The physical response was immediate and excruciating. It was like a flaming explosion in my head, with heat and fire pulsing out to the rest of my body. I screamed, certain that this was what it felt with to be burned alive.

Through my screams I heard Wesker: "Interesting."

The doctor had retreated to safety at Wesker's side. The guards remained with me, sealed inside the chamber, tensely watching me writhe and strain and grunt. The pain began to subside and I felt… strange. Different. Better.

My mind had never thought so clearly. I could sense things that I never imagined were there. It was as though all life before it had been a dream, and I was only now awake.

And I felt strong… so strong. Not just strong, but more in control. I could tell things that were going on inside me. I could feel my heart rate decrease, my breathing slow, my sweat evaporate, my adrenalin subside. I had no frame of reference to describe how I felt at that moment. I felt like I had previously been incomplete, and now I was capable of anything.

As the pain vanished completely, I wasted no time. Before I even knew I was doing it, I'd broken all the restraints on the chair as though they were paper. The guards aimed their guns at me, but I was airborne while they were still aiming at the chair. Neither managed to fire more than a couple of rounds before their guns were on the floor, targeted by a pair of surgically precise sweeping kicks. I was doing moves I'd never been taught. I saw the guards like beings in slow motion, but I saw more than that – I could see what they were going to do before they even knew they were going to do it. One went for his stun baton; his neck was broken before it was unholstered. The other made a move for the door, but no one was letting him out. I felt like I was defying gravity as I bounded off of one wall to land sitting on his shoulders, his neck held tightly between my thighs. How do I explain the next move? I'm pretty sure it was in defiance of the laws of physics as I understand them, but with a quick jerk backward, the guard and I both flipped end over end. It ended with the guard pinned down under me, my knees on his shoulders, his terrified face staring up at me between my thighs. I slammed the heel of my palm up into his nose. I felt cartilage snap off and stab his brain. Instant kill.

What the hell had just happened?

I leapt for the door, pounding with my newfound strength, but the chamber had apparently been built to withstand something like me.

"Incredible," whispered Wesker. "So what do you think, Jill? Good stuff, isn't it?"

I dashed for the pane of safety glass that separated us and punched with a force and speed that should not only have shattered the glass, but every bone in my hand. Somehow neither was damaged. The explosive sound of my hit made the techs under Wesker's command jump back in shock and fear. Satisfied, I paced back and forth like a predator and said: "Why don't you come in here, Wesker, and I'll show you just how good it is."

Wesker didn't even flinch; he just laughed that condescending laugh of his. "I might just do that. But first, this serum has another effect that I'm just dying to try out."

Huh?

"Jill, there is something I would like you to do: I would like you slap yourself in the face."

I felt the sting before the words registered. I looked at the red palm of my right hand and touched my cheek where I'd hit myself. Wesker enjoyed my confusion.

"The mind boggles at the possibilities. Jill: sit down and stay put until I tell you otherwise."

I sat, as ordered. I did not want to sit, but I sat. This made no sense. Terror and confusion overwhelmed my senses. _What's happening to me?_

Wesker joined me in the chamber. "Now Jill, what was it you were saying? Oh yes, you're going to show me just how good this serum is." He walked around to stand in front of me. "So why don't you lash out at me?"

"I… I can't."

"I'm standing right here. Wouldn't you like to try some of those new moves on me?"

"Yes." God, would I! How could I be frozen in place like this? Why would no part of my body obey my will?

"So why can't you?"

"I don't know!" I cried, starting to feel dizzy and sick. Beads of sweat appeared at my brow. My head began to slump forward. Wesker tssked.

"Too bad… such a marvelous formula, such potential. But metabolized so quickly. No real practical application."

When the serum wore off, it felt worse than any hangover I'd ever had. I leaned forward and puked right there, barely missing Wesker's shoes. He looked down and gingerly stepped around the puddle of my sickness.

"Ah, well. This has been fun, but the results are consistent with our initial findings – disappointing, but not unexpected. I'm afraid it's back to the drawing board. Thank you so much for participating."

Wesker strode out, having lost interest in this little game. Shivering and aching, I was loaded into my wheelchair without the strength to fight, and taken back to my cell. Dumped into bed, I simply passed out.

The next morning I felt much improved, but the whole experience had been beyond disturbing. P30, he had called it. What was it? How did it give me such strength, such speed? And why had I been unable to resist Wesker's direct instructions? My God, what if he figured out a way to make that stuff last longer? He could have an army of indestructible superhumans, completely obedient to his every whim… I didn't want to think about that possibility. It was too nightmarish.

Of course, I hadn't learned the true nature Uroboros yet. And I hadn't even heard of The Jewel.

I had yet to learn what the word "nightmare" means.


	7. VI: The Procedure

Every morning in that facility I woke up knowing someday soon, something worse would happen. That's what life was like there. The day my pessimism was vindicated started like any other. The clunk and hum of the fluorescent hall lights outside my cell awakened me, followed by the slow hiss of the tetrodotoxin gas. I didn't bother getting out of bed, instead just waiting for the dreaded paralysis to creep over me. What now? More tests? More experimental serums?

The technicians who came to retrieve me seemed somehow more somber than usual, though, which set off alarms in my mind. As usual, I was loaded and strapped to a wheeled gurney and carted off to the medical center. But this time I was taken to a new room. A very clean room, with windowed balconies overlooking it, a frightening-looking array of machines and trays of shiny cutlery.

Shit. This was an operating room.

A cadre of what I presumed to be surgeons were conferring, mumbling and arranging their nice trays. Fear pricked my skin. Surgery was not good. Surgery was _not_ good.

One of the men approached me. Even though he was thoughtfully covered in scrubs and wearing gloves and a mask, I could tell it was Wesker before he spoke.

"Good morning, Miss Valentine. Today is a very special day for you. Today you become something more than human.

"Oh, Jill," he continued, as usual in love with his own voice, "you've been quite the distraction from my primary research goals. But soon, you'll be able to earn your keep. In fact, I predict you will be one of my most valuable assets. After this procedure, my lovely Jill, you will be nearly as powerful as I am. Now, the bad news is, unfortunately, there will be no anesthesia and no sedatives. You'll be awake for the entire process and you'll feel everything. I assure you this is entirely medically necessary. Oh wait, no, it's not, it's just a little reward I'm giving myself. I work so hard, am I not allowed the occasional indulgence?" I could hear that shark's grin behind the green mask. I would have given anything to be able to punch it off of his face.

"Gentlemen... please proceed."

The surgeons wasted no time. They convened over me and began to point at my chest, writing on me with markers, drawing up their plans. Finally, looking at each other for nodding confirmation that all was ready to proceed, they began their work in earnest.

They sliced. They cut into me. They drilled holes into my breastbone. And as Wesker had promised, all of it without so much as an aspirin. It was more pain than I thought it was possible for a human being to feel. As I was cavalierly mutilated, my mind screamed like a banshee, but the only outward evidence of this was the steady stream of tears down the sides of my face. I tried to focus, tried to pay attention to what was being done to me. That's my training. Knowledge is power; any little thing you pick up might be the clue that makes all the difference in the world.

They were threading catheters into me, inserting shunts into my chest, hooking things around my ribs. I couldn't imagine what this horror was meant to achieve. I tried to focus, but the pain and terror were overwhelming – I feared I would have a heart attack or a stroke right there on the table. Soon, even coherent thought began to escape me. Fireworks were going off in my brain; I felt like I was dying, and I was glad of it. I tried to embrace it, in fact. The nightmare seemed to be slipping away, getting smaller. I was escaping it somehow.

But it wasn't death I was slipping into.

* * *

In the blink of an eye, my surroundings changed. I was still lying down, but now I was alone, in a room flooded by golden sunlight. It was a nice room. A bedroom.

I didn't feel the pain or even the telltale tingle of the gas-induced paralysis. I tried gingerly to sit up. There was no blood, no injury of any kind. I looked down, looked around. I was lying in a rather luxurious bed, wearing nothing but a satin gown that felt wonderful against my skin.

Further scanning the room, I saw a dressing table with a mirror. I caught a glimpse of myself - brown hair, a healthy pink complexion. Certainly no trace of the days and nights of horror and experiments.

What was this place?

Whatever it was, however I'd gotten here, it was beautiful and comforting. I realized I was hearing the crash of waves and the squawking of gulls. I got up and walked to the open window. A lovely white beach spread out before me, giving way to an endless blue-green ocean. This was the kind of place I'd always dreamed of having, if the world were safer and didn't need people like me.

Through the salty sting of the ocean, I caught another aroma. Coffee. Strong coffee. I left the bedroom and walked down a flight of stairs, savoring the chilly bite of the hardwood on my bare feet.

I found a well-stocked kitchen. There were so many wonderful details to take in. A bowl of green apples on a countertop. A panda cookie jar. A multi-tiered basket hanging from a chain next to the sink, sporting tomatoes, peppers and eggplants. A fresh pot of coffee with a clean mug next to it, just for me. A breakfast nook, the little table it contained boasting a jug of what appeared to be freshly squeezed orange juice next to a glass that sparkled in the dappled sunlight.

I couldn't resist. I wanted both.

I went to the counter and poured the coffee, then went to the table and poured the juice. Juice and coffee. It's such a cliché, but it is the best imaginable way to wake up. I alternated sips from both and felt rejuvenated.

I noticed an open screen door leading to a patio. Putting down my drinks for the moment, I walked over to see a man sitting out there, relaxing in a chaise lounge, looking out over the sea. It was Chris.

"Chris!" I cried, running out to him. He looked over, smiling, tan and fit in his camp shirt, white slacks and sandals. He stood up, took off a pair of sunglasses and tucked them into his pocket.

"Hey, Jill," he said, as casually as if we'd last seen each other just yesterday.

I was having none of that. I threw my arms around him and squeezed tight. He hugged me back, seeming surprised and a little embarrassed by my enthusiasm.

"Okay, okay!" he said, chuckling.

I pulled back a bit to look him in the eye. "Redfield, you would not believe what I've been through!"

I had so much to tell him. The tests. The experiments. The surgery.

The surgery that I couldn't recall them finishing. I felt the joy drain from my face.

"This… this isn't real, is it?"

Chris looked at me with a sad smile. "It seems real enough, though, doesn't it?"

"Real enough for what?" I said, stepping back and getting a little angry. "This is just some imaginary refuge I've made in my mind to escape Wesker and his madness."

"Maybe. So?"

I started to get worked up. "So, I can't indulge my weakness like this! I need to be there for every moment! Don't you get it? Anything I see, anything I hear could be a clue, a critical piece of information that I could use to take Wesker down! Or help some of his victims! Or… I don't know what, but maybe I can find some way to be useful, just by being present, by being a witness to his crimes! Just by enduring! I can't just run away and hide whenever I feel like it! I can't let him break me! I'm strong enough to take anything he can throw at me!"

Chris was silent for a moment. Ominously, he said, "Jill, I know you're strong, but you don't know what's coming." He put comforting hands on my shoulders. "Look, it's just like in the field; you can't always be on the offensive. Sometimes, tactics call for a prudent retreat. Maybe this is your retreat. Maybe this is where you fall back to regroup, restock and re-assess."

I could feel tears fighting for attention, but I held them back. "I can't come here again, Chris. I know what I'm going back to. It will be too hard to leave."

He brushed some hair out of my eyes. "Well, maybe that's where your strength really comes into play. Maybe that's what you save it for, jumping back into the fight when you're needed."

"_You_ are my strength, Chris. I can't survive this alone."

"Yes, you can. I'm your partner, and I'm telling you that you can. Don't you trust your partner?"

I smiled a wry smile. "You're just an imaginary copy of my partner," I joked.

"I seem real enough, though, don't I?" he said with a wink.

The lovely sunlight started to dim and lose all color. Clouds rolled over the sky. I began to hear a rumble. It was Wesker's voice.

"I think you have to go, Jill."

"I miss you so much, Chris!" I would never make myself so vulnerable with the real Chris, but here, in this place, I could not help it.

He smiled as he seemed to recede into the distance. "Not a problem, Valentine. If you need me, you know where to find me."

And with a clap of thunder and a flash of light, I was back in the operating room.


	8. VII: The Jewel

Tears flooded my eyes as fresh torrents of pain flooded my consciousness. Through my overwhelming agony, I started to pick up on what Wesker was saying.

"… so long for this moment. Gentlemen, if you are prepared, let the installation begin."

With that, I felt something cold and heavy being lowered onto me. They were connecting it to the tubes, the wires, the hooks that went into me and ended up God knows where. They were making it a part of me.

Wesker had been no doubt savoring my ordeal, but this part he seemed to find especially delightful. "Gently now, doctors. That's a pretty valuable piece of hardware." I was pretty sure he wasn't talking about me, since nothing about his treatment of me in this place had remotely resembled gentle.

Finally, it seemed, the work was complete. Something was sprayed over the device and my chest, something that brought near instant relief to my unimaginable pain. I could tell from the menthol-tinged scent and the cool bite that it was somehow related to the first aid spray Umbrella had developed as part of its pharmaceutical operations, the one based on secret and mysterious herbs. Probably one of the only truly good and helpful things they'd ever achieved. The stuff was powerful but incredibly expensive and hard to come by. No doubt Wesker had some stashed away all over the place, not that he needed it for himself.

In any case, for the relief it provided, I was grateful through my terror and disgust.

The surgeon ticked off his final conclusions. "The healing factor is doing its job. Her vitals are strong, her functions are normal. The installation appears to have been a success."

"Excellent work. You may go now. Please send in the technicians. Let's turn the lady on and see how her engine runs."

The doctors filed out, and were soon replaced by a number of techs carrying laptops and other pieces of equipment I couldn't really make out.

"Sir," one of them piped up, "shall we activate the Jewel?"

The Jewel? I couldn't see what this thing was they'd attached to me, but it sure didn't feel like a diamond pendant.

"Please do, baseline systems only. For now, let's just give her one brief taste of its true power. Tomorrow we'll activate the injection apparatus in full."

"Yes, sir." The tech set up and hooked up, and began tapping away. "We've got connectivity... activate primary power source."

Upon hearing that, I felt a horrible throbbing throughout my body. The device started to vibrate and hum as it came to life, and I felt it down to my bones. Would it feel this way all the time? It made me want to vomit.

"Running diagnostics... everything looks good. Proceeding with a single injection."

With that, I felt a burning explosion throughout my chest, face and head. I recognized it immediately. It was P30. My senses fired up and the world seemed infinitely clearer; any lingering pain or discomfort from the device faded almost instantly. Frighteningly, I felt complete.

"Injection apparatus functioning within normal parameters."

With true horror washing over me, the pieces all fell into place and I knew exactly what this device was. Even through my paralysis, Wesker sensed my realization.

"It seems our Miss Valentine has figured it out. Very good. The device we have attached to you, as you may have gathered, is something we call The Jewel. It's really a remarkable piece of engineering: A flywheel battery with an estimated minimum operational life of a hundred years. Carbon nanotube processing systems smaller and more sophisticated than any computer ever built, capable of monitoring every aspect of your physical condition in real-time. Full GPS and satellite connectivity allows me to access and control the device from anywhere in the world. And the whole reason for its existence: a finely calibrated and incredibly durable delivery system that will constantly inject you with carefully measured amounts of P30. Five minutes in a laboratory is worthless: your super-human powers and abilities will be with you constantly, and my control over your actions will be absolute."

As he spoke, that initial dose of P30 faded and I started to feel the "hangover" - the deep ache in my bones, the nausea, the weariness, the "dullness" of everything.

"Well, I think that just about does it for today, gentlemen. Our patient has had quite a busy day. She'll need to rest up, for tomorrow, her work begins in earnest. Please have her brought back to her cell."

I was wheeled back and dumped unceremoniously on the floor of my cell. Shortly after, the tetrodotoxin wore off and I was no longer paralyzed. I'm pretty sure the entire facility knew the exact moment it wore off, in fact, due to my screams. Screams of pain, of rage, of helplessness, of degradation, of abject hatred. I didn't even try to climb into bed. I crawled into a corner, sobbing like an injured beast, shaking and sweating like a junkie in withdrawal.

That was pretty much how the night went. Sleep wasn't an option; I was overloaded with horror as the disturbing, nauseating hum of The Jewel permeated every part of my body. I impotently clawed at the device, wanting to tear it right out of me but lacking the strength to even try, and fearing that I could take no more such pain. Eventually I did pass out, but it wasn't what I would call sleep.

I have never wished for death more than I did that night.


	9. VIII: Activation

When the technicians found me in the morning, I was still curled up in the corner, a shivering, matted mess of sweat and tears. They didn't bother with the tetrodotoxin gas, and I didn't put up a fight as I was loaded and strapped into a wheelchair. The hum of the Jewel was making my eyes water, my gums itch and my teeth ache. Imagine if you swallowed a vibrating cell phone that just would not stop.

I was taken to a new room. It was walled with shatterproof glass and separated in the middle by what appeared to be a retractable barrier made of the same glass. The side they brought me into was empty but for a single chair; on the other side of the glass there was a table with some worrisome items on it. A butane lighter. An icepick. A 44 caliber revolver.

The techs undid my restraints and indicated that I should sit in the chair. Under the watch of armed guards, I obeyed. All of them left the chamber, and the door closed behind them with a hiss.

I looked around. I saw my reflection in the glass, and it was not a pretty sight. Hair matted and tangled, face gaunt and sallow, eyes puffy and bloodshot – and then there was that monstrosity attached to my chest, bulbous and grotesque, weaving in and out of me, surrounded by warped, scarred and veiny flesh. I was being turned into a monster.

With a click, a light turned on outside the chamber, revealing Wesker and a couple of technicians.

"My, Jill, you do look awful. Too bad. Today is a very exciting day, you see," said my nightmare. "Today is the day when you truly and fully become a part of my team."

"I'll never help you, Wesker," I spat.

"Oh, yes, Jill, actually you will."

"I'll fight it. I'll find a way."

"Oh, I do hope you try. I'm actually looking forward to watching you fail. But enough of that – we're just delaying the inevitable moment, which has finally come. Please, activate the Jewel. Full power. Continuous injection."

The tech started typing. "No! No please –" I started to exclaim, hating myself for slipping into begging, as I tensed up waiting for the pain. The pain which hit me like a rocket as the P30 entered my bloodstream. Full power, continuous injection was a scorching blast throughout my chest, head and face that made me scream. I writhed and clawed at myself, but to no avail.

And then the burning passed. The shivering stopped. The sickness melted away. The tears stopped completely. Heart rate and breathing returned almost instantly to normal. Adrenaline rush vanished. In the place of these things, I felt strength and awareness surge into me, accompanied by a strange calm. I hated how good it felt.

I wasted no time. In a fraction of a second, the chair I'd been sitting on had shattered against the door, thrown by me in a fluid move I'd never been taught but that came to me as naturally as breathing. The chair was now metal and plastic shrapnel all over the floor; the door was undented. Had it cracked, I'd been poised to dive through it, but I'd also considered it might not break and was already calculating new possibilities before the chair had even hit.

But before I could do anything else, I heard Wesker's voice say: "Freeze." And I did.

I just stood there. Inside, I screamed at my body to move, to do something, to do anything. But it was no use. I obeyed. I stood there like a statue.

"For the remainder of today's testing, Jill, you will take no action without permission, unless I say otherwise. This includes speaking. Say 'yes, sir' if you understand.

"Y-yes sir…" I said. I tried so hard not to say it – I think the slow stutter was my doing, but I couldn't stop the words.

"Good. Now, we're going to run through a few tests. You see, while I am quite confident that the P30 is working as expected, I need to be absolutely sure before we entrust you with anything important. In theory, if something were going wrong with the P30 or with the Jewel, any cooperation you show could be an act, to gain my trust until you have an opportunity to make a move. Unfortunately, I have yet to devise a test that directly detects levels of free will. So we'll have to make do with some simple behavioral evaluations and hope for the best. Please, sit."

A tech had opened the door, brought in another chair and placed it facing the table right next to the mid-chamber barrier. He was already gone and the door was closed behind him, not that an open door was any use to me. I sat as instructed. Wesker nodded to the tech next to him, and the barrier withdrew into the ceiling, exposing me to the contents of the table. God, if I could control my actions, with the strength and awareness of the P30, those contents would have been all I needed, I just knew it. I'd already be out that door. I didn't know if I could beat Wesker, but I was pretty sure I could escape him. Instead, I could only sit there calmly, looking upon them with longing.

"Now for the first test. I'm afraid this is going to hurt, but as you've seen, my doctors are the best in the world so I'm told it won't leave you any worse for wear. Jill: I want you to pick up the lighter with your right hand."

I did as instructed.

"Good. Next, I would like you to hold out your left hand, palm down, and hold the lighter directly under it."

_Oh God, no. Wesker, no! You can't -_

"Now when I say 'begin', you will ignite the lighter and hold it under your hand until I tell you to stop. You will make no sound, no scream, no other moves as you do this. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir."

He cleared his throat, seeming to savor the pause he took before giving the order and my inward terror at what was to come.

"Begin."

I ignited the lighter. It hurt just as bad as you think. And no matter what I did, what I thought, what I wanted, I just held it there. I gritted my teeth as I felt tears streaming past my nose and into the corners of my mouth; I felt my heart racing and my veins throbbing. The smell of burnt flesh flooded the chamber. I saw and heard skin crackle and peel. I saw blackening muscle. I wasn't being burned. I was cooking myself.

Nausea flooded me as my vision turned red and blurry. Finally, my body could take no more and I passed out.

When I came around, I was still sitting in the chair. The pain was far less than I expected and my hand was bandaged up, a dull brown stain seeping through on both sides. The lighter was gone.

"Excellent work, Jill. Very convincing; I doubt even someone as inarguably tough as you could have done that to herself voluntarily, all in a bid to gain my trust. But in the interest of science, we must persevere. On to the second test. I want you to pick up the gun."

I did as instructed.

"Do you know how to handle a 44-caliber sidearm such as this?"

"Yes, I do," I replied.

"Please, make sure this firearm is in good working order."

My training kicked in. I pulled the pin and popped open the chamber. Six rounds. I spun it to make sure the action was smooth, then slapped the chamber back in and held the gun up to aim it, checking along the sight, one hand tightly gripping the other, one arm pulling up and back while the other pulled down and forward, the tension keeping the gun perfectly still. Straight and true. As I did all this, I was more confused than fearful. I doubted he was going to have me shoot myself – he wasn't going to risk serious damage to a valuable asset. What would this be about? I nodded at him to indicate that the gun was in perfect shape.

"So professional. All right, now, this test will involve a secondary subject." He strode away from his place next to the tech station.

Oh no. Was I to kill somebody? Would that be his proof?

Before I could process this idea, I was surprised as Wesker himself joined me in the chamber. He was carrying a plexiglass cube of brown gel.

"Surprise, surprise. Jill, do you know what this substance is?"

"It appears to be ballistics gel. Forensic investigators use it to test the effects of weapon fire, since it has similar resistance properties to human tissue."

"Very good. Class, you should all try to be more like our Jill!" he said to no one in particular. "That is correct. In this case, all I wish is to demonstrate something very important to you."

He placed the cube on the floor next to me.

"Go ahead and fire a round into that gel."

I did as he asked. The sound was deafening, or it should have been, but the increased resilience brought about by the P30 seemed to make it far less painful. I presumed that whatever gave Wesker his ability had similar qualities, explaining his failure to use ear protection, and the minimal wince he gave when I fired that miniature cannon.

To paraphrase the cop in the movie, a 44-caliber sidearm is the most powerful handgun in the world. My round had turned the ballistic gel into salad.

Wesker reached into the shredded gel, finally fishing out his quarry – the round I'd fired into it. He brushed off the little bits of brown and held it up for me to see.

"I just wanted you to be completely certain that the weapon you are holding is real, and the rounds it carries are not blanks."

With that, he walked around to sit in a chair across from me at the table.

"Now, Jill, I didn't get where I am without taking a few risks along the way, and I think it's time for me to get some skin into the game. I want you to aim that revolver directly at my forehead."

I did so, relishing the prospect of blowing his head off.

"Go ahead and hold it there until I say otherwise, but do not fire."

I did as he asked. I concentrated so hard, screaming at my hands to pull the trigger. Just one squeeze, one tiny motion… anything.

"Nothing, eh? Well, I tell you what: let's raise the stakes. Cock the hammer, if you please."

I pulled the hammer back, hearing and feeling that satisfying click. It would be so easy now. SO easy. A single hiccup would turn his head into ground beef.

"You know, don't you Jill, that if you were to kill me right here, right now, all this would be over, right?"

"Yes, I do."

"Do you want to pull that trigger?"

"Yes."

"Do you want to kill me so badly it keeps you up at night?"

I blinked sweat out of my eyes. "Yes."

"I do believe that if you were to kill me, if you had full control of your actions, escape from this place would hardly be an issue for you. You could face down a thousand of my best men, and you would find a way to persevere. It must be so frustrating for you. How do you feel right now, Jill?"

I couldn't avoid answering a direct question and I couldn't lie. "Furious, confused, helpless, ashamed, humiliated, violated, mutilated and debased." The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

"That sounds about right," he replied, and then lapsed into silence.

We probably sat there for a minute. He didn't look the least bit nervous, the bastard.

Finally, he took the gun in one hand and pulled, and it slipped out of mine.

Goddamnit. I had had the chance to end it and I couldn't do it. How was this possible?

"Now that, that was pretty convincing. But there is one boundary that you still must cross for me to put the fate of Uroboros into your capable hands."

He smiled, got up and left the room.

"All right, Jill, one more test and I think we'll call it a day. Gentlemen?"

Wesker nodded at someone I couldn't see. Two armed guard were dragging a struggling young man toward the chamber. The door opened and the man was thrown in like a sack of trash.

I looked him up and down. Couldn't have been more than 18 or 19. Black. Shabby, worn, dirty clothes. Scarred and malnourished. Hair bleached by the sun.

Missing his right hand.

That was when I realized where we were. We were deep underground, somewhere in Africa. It seemed very unlikely that we were sequestered beneath, say, Des Moines, and that Wesker would go to all the trouble of kidnapping a poor African and importing him for sport. And what had Wesker called me? His "fertile delta" – as in the Nile Delta. Any hope I had of being found took a severe blow right then – who'd even think to look for me here?

The poor young man looked around, terrified, his wide eyes settling on me. Clearly he didn't know what to make of me, but he know none of this added up to anything good.

Wesker spoke. "I would like to introduce you to Mosi. He is the son of a farmer, the older of two brothers. His family depends on him; he carries produce to the market to sell it for pennies. When he gets a chance, he tries to assist foreign aid workers, to help his people. When he was 12, a local militia killed his mother in front of him, then cut off his right hand so he couldn't vote."

"Jill, I want you to pick up that ice pick and kill Mosi right now."

Before I even knew I'd heard all the words, the pick was in my hand. I leapt at Mosi like a jungle cat leaping for pray. I had him pinned down, the ice pick in my right hand, stabbing right for his ear. A clean, efficient, soundless kill. Merciless and sudden.

Except something stopped me. No, not something, me. I stopped me.

And it hurt. Fighting the P30 is like tearing your mind apart. I don't even know how to do it, or when it's possible to do it, but at that moment I was able to stay my hand. The icepick fell away. My mind was on fire – unbelievably, some part of me was screaming that I HAD to kill him, that my very life depended on it. I grabbed the sides of my throbbing head and staggered back, grunting, fighting for every movement I could call my own.

Wesker looked frustrated. "What's happening?"

"She's resisting. This was expected." responded the frantic technician. He tapped, and once again I felt the burning erupt inside me. Any fight I had melted away. The part that had been screaming seemed to be joyously triumphant. Pure, animal violence flowed to every part of my body. I heard inhuman screams and realized they were coming from me. I saw a hand plunging an ice pick into Mosi's chest over and over, and realized it was mine. It was not a clean kill, nor efficient, nor soundless. His blood was everywhere. It coated him, coated me, coated the floor and walls. His screams and cries turned to gurgles. I will never forget the question in his eyes: Why would you do this to me? And then the candle behind his eyes flickered out, and Mosi was no more.

Once the deed was done, I let go of the pick embedded in his chest and fell back on my ass, unable to avert my eyes from what I had just done.

But my screams did not stop. Not until Wesker's voice told them to.

The tech spoke up. "As you can see, it's not a problem, sir. We've got her back. We always knew getting the dosage exactly right was tricky. Too little, and she might find ways to resist. Too much, and we risk brain damage, organ failure and other side effects."

Wesker's frustration melted away with the gory sight of his success. "Well," he said, "it seems that this porridge is just right."

"Yes, sir," responded the tech. "And if you do have any incidents, you can make field adjustments very easily. But I don't expect any major deviations. The more she is exposed to P30, the more we expect that any possibility of resistance will be broken down. Once she's completed the training course you have prescribed, she should be 100% predictable."

I just sat there, barely registering any of this talk, numb at the thought of what I had just done. I had killed an innocent young man. A good man. A man who was the hope for his family's future. I had stabbed that man in the chest 137 times. The P30 insured that I knew the exact number just as I remembered the entire incident in perfect, high-fidelity detail that an AV buff would kill for.

Apparently there were some things beyond the control of the P30, though. That's what I realized as I got up on all fours and vomited, right into the pool of blood that had drained out of Mosi. Wesker just laughed.

"Well, Jill, I'm a man of my word. You did great. Say 'thank you, sir."

"Thank you, sir," I said, the words tasting like poison on my lips.

"Please take her back to her cell. One last night in that particular cage, Jill. Soon there will be no more cells, no more doctors, no more tests. Just do me the favor of cooperating fully on your way back. I don't think the wheelchair will be needed."

And with that, Wesker strode out purposefully. He was clearly pleased by all he had seen that day, proud of his accomplishment. I vowed to make him choke on that pride. My fury burned impotently within me as I followed the guards back to my cell.

Back in my cell, I discovered that my body was pretty much back under my control. I noticed that there was no pain in my left hand. I unwrapped the bandages to discover that the injury had almost completely healed but for some discoloration on either side. The P30 apparently had very potent rejuvenation capabilities. In a way, this was a disappointment to me; it meant I'd be that much harder to kill. I looked down, examining The Jewel, gingerly touching the spots where the cables entered me. The nausea, the pain, the hum, all had vanished under the influence of the P30 chemical. It bothered me a great deal that The Jewel no longer bothered me. I didn't want it to feel so much like a part of me.

_Don't obsess, Jill. Keep yourself moving forward._ I did some pushups and some crunches, then washed my face in the sink.

I wasn't tired, but there was nothing for me to do, so I lay down and closed my eyes. What I wanted at that moment, more than anything, was to understand: how was it possible for this chemical to render me so susceptible to the control of others? I thought that if I could learn anything about the process, the way it worked, maybe it would give me an advantage, an opening. Maybe I could resist. Maybe I could, in essence, hack my own brain.

I played the experience of the day back in my head, flawless and clear, every moment. It was as horrible the second time as the first, but I persevered. There was something off about the way my mind had been working, and I had to know what it was. I "listened" to my thoughts, my impulses. Something was very familiar about the way I felt during the experience.

Oh yeah. My wisdom teeth.

When I was seventeen, I had all of my wisdom teeth extracted. I was not put under general anesthesia for the procedure. Instead, I was given something called a "twilight sedative" and some Novocain from a big needle. I was awake and aware for the entire procedure, but distant and separate, more of an observer than a patient. Far enough away to be unconcerned, a curious bystander. When following Wesker's orders that day, there was a very similar sense of disconnection, of fracture. But not quite the same. There was more to it.

After more reflection, I formed a model of how I think my mind works under P30. I am neither a psychologist nor a neurologist; these are simply my own clumsy layman's attempts at describing a strange and unprecedented phenomenon that just happens to be the horror I live with every day.

Essentially, during those moments when the P30 is doing its job, it is as if my mind is fractured into two minds, both operating and thinking in parallel. The first I call the mind of contemplation and the second I call the mind of action. The mind of contemplation is the conscious mind, the voice that chatters away in your head all day. It is the center of both morality and reason, the mind that draws up the grand plans that make up a human life. The mind of action is less conscious, but always active; it is the mind of tactics. It is how the goals of the mind of contemplation are translated into effort.

Normally, these minds operate as one, and are indistinguishable for all intents and purposes. In my case, when control is being exerted over me, the minds separate. I can perceive all the activity in both minds, sort of like seeing two television channels at once, the images overlaid, the sounds mixed together, but with the ability to follow both streams of content simultaneously. The mind of contemplation is fully aware of everything happening in the mind of action, but the mind of action, normally completely obedient to the mind of contemplation, is completely oblivious to it. The orders of Wesker, and of his designates, replace the mind of contemplation in the perception of the mind of action. They become the moral and rational input that is translated into short-term decision making, into motion. The mind of contemplation is completely ignored, in fact, during those moments, it cannot even be perceived by the mind of action.

And when the orders are fulfilled, the minds rejoin. The override is cancelled, the bypass switch deactivated. But these can be activated at a moment's notice, and there is nothing I can do to stop it.

I still did not understand what came into play when I hesitated before killing Mosi, but whatever it was, all it took was a miniscule amount of the P30 chemical to break down my resistance completely. I hoped I could figure out what happened and if I had any control over it. It might be my ace in the hole; there might be a moment when a brief lapse in Wesker's perfect control of me could be the difference between life and death, for me or for others. It occurred to me that, even if I were ordered to kill again and found myself able to resist, I might have to go through with the act anyway. I might have to save my resistance for a time when it could save more than one life, one life that would end anyway, whether at my hand or at the hand of another. I did not look forward to having to make this choice, but I didn't know if it would even come to that. Maybe this porridge was just right.

The mental effort of working all this out was exhausting, even for my hypercharged mind. There was nothing more to do. I slept.


	10. IX: The Plague Doctor

The next few months of my life were spent in training. I was already as skilled a combatant as you could hope to recruit, but my newfound strength, agility and flexibility opened up worlds of possibilities, and Wesker wanted me second only to him in my ability to defeat any threat force.

As promised, I never saw the cell again. I was moved to a private suite, devoid of ornament but spacious and more comfortable. No lock on the door. None needed. My orders were clear: Don't try to escape, don't try to hurt Wesker or any of his men, don't try to hurt myself, don't try to damage or interfere with the operation of the Jewel, don't try to communicate with the outside world, don't interfere with Wesker's plans. When I wasn't training, I had an entire floor to myself with many amenities – exercise equipment, a full kitchen, my own private bathroom. I'd preferred the cell. This was a jail that continuously mocked me. I had no choice but to go through the motions of life – I had to do what was best for myself physically and mentally, whatever would keep me at peak operational status in Wesker's service. I think what I hated most about that place was the mirrors placed tastefully and practically here and there. I didn't have to spend any time looking at them, but I couldn't smash them and I couldn't help but catch a glimpse every once in a while; some blonde woman with alabaster skin, shale eyes and a monstrous red mechanical implant for a chest was staring at me as though I should know her.

Beyond sleep, I did not spend much time there. I spent twelve solid hours a day in training. I had traded in my white prison clothes for what I could tell was a very expensive, state-of-the-art body suit. It was completely form-fitting, tough as Kevlar but extremely flexible. It was actually the most practical choice for a warrior of my new skills as it allowed me to pull off any move, no matter how acrobatic. The built-in heels seemed an odd choice, but I found that I had perfect balance no matter what I was wearing on my feet, and they turned out to be an excellent built-in weapon, contributing devastating crushing force to my kicks. There was even a trick built in for convenience when using the restroom, but I'd prefer to remain discreet about that. It doesn't add to the story.

I sparred with many of Wesker's best men. Individually they posed little challenge; the trick was learning to defeat multiple attackers at once. It would have been easy to simply enjoy this as good sport, as a whole new way to use my body, especially since I wasn't in the field, being asked to do anything repugnant yet. But what little was under my control I was very careful about, and I never trust the easy way.

At least twice a week I would spend several hours sparring with Wesker. I dreaded this more than anything, mainly because every word he spoke hurt like a dagger as it fractured my mind to achieve his goals. He was the only individual challenge I had; I never managed to take him down, but I did land some good hits and smashed a few pairs of his sunglasses. He was too pleased by this for me to be anything but disgusted by it.

I started to come to a realization that horrified me. Spending time with Wesker was about more than training: I was being subtly conditioned. Having to hear and obey a specific set of words was inefficient; in order to most effectively bring about Wesker's will, I realized I was starting to be able to interpret his intent through all the subtle cues of human communication: tone, expression, body language. He didn't always need to tell me exactly what to do; my actions became an extension of not just his words, but also his will. I didn't think I could be more sickened by my situation until I realized what I was. I was more than a robot, after all; dogs have their own expertise in interpreting their master's mood and intentions, and I was as obedient as any dog Wesker could ever own.

Finally, one evening, Wesker came into my penthouse suite and parked himself in a chair.

"Just stopping by to check in on you, Jill. I trust you have everything you need here?"

"Yes, I do," I answered. Technically, I did, so there was no alternative.

"Good. Well, I just wanted to let you know how impressed I am with your progress. In fact, I believe you are ready for actual experience in the field. Tomorrow, you will accompany me on a rather important mission so that I can evaluate your effectiveness. Please report to my office at oh-eight-hundred hours."

"Yes, sir" I helplessly replied.

"Now, is there anything you would like to say to me?"

"Yes, there is."

"Please, then, feel free to speak your mind."

I won't repeat what I said to him as I am not proud of it. It was a long list of invectives and expletives, along with a number of detailed and graphic descriptions of all the ways I wanted to kill him.

Finally, he held up a hand and I stopped.

He smiled. "There now, doesn't it feel good to get it all out? It's just not healthy to keep those negative emotions bottled up inside." Satisfied, he got up to leave.

"Oh-eight-hundred hours, Jill. I will see you then."

I'd had no trouble sleeping for a while. I'd gotten used to the hum of the Jewel and I'd found a way to bear the horror of my every waking moment, the memories of the pain and of the killing of Mosi, without slipping into insanity. But I couldn't sleep well that night. I was being smothered by a feeling that I had come to know very well under Wesker: the feeling that I just didn't understand how bad things could get, but I was about to find out.

* * *

Morning washed over me with sickening dread. As I went about my preparations for the day, all I could see were the things that could end this before it started, tantalizingly within my reach.

_Bread knife. I could do some serious damage to myself._

_Light bulb. I could smash it and jam my fingers in the socket. Would hurt like hell, but it might even fry the Jewel. _

_Kitchen cleanser. Just down the whole bottle. Would hurt even worse._

None of these things were possible, though. I had someplace to be and I had standing orders to keep myself in top physical condition. Self-mutilation didn't factor in, so it didn't even register in that part of my brain that was running the show.

I reported to Wesker as ordered. I stood before his desk passively, awaiting instructions like a good little robot.

He took me in, a thoughtful expression on his stony face, then pushed a large manuscript towards me. The instruction to look at the tome was implicit, so I complied.

The manuscript appeared to be very old, medieval European if I had to guess. Next to the old English that I could not read was an etched image of a cloaked man with a wide brimmed hat, wearing an odd bird-like mask with a long beak.

Wesker launched into a history lesson. "In the middle ages, during the period of the Black Death, doctors would visit patients suffering from the bubonic plague. These doctors would wear oddly shaped, bird-like masks. The mask was intended as protection against the illness; the beak was stuffed with various herbs, probably ineffectual.

"Of course, we now know about disease vectors and contagions, and we realize that no one was doing more to spread the plague than the doctors visiting all the patients without any real protection, without notions of sterilization, of cleanliness. Much less any idea about how disease actually works."

On the other side of the desk was a wooden box, which Wesker pushed towards me. Again I followed the implicit order and opened the box. Inside was a long hooded robe with a camouflage pattern. I took the robe out, held it by the shoulders and shook it out to straighten it.

"A pale, blond white woman in a skin-tight battle suit running around the plains of Africa would attract rather more attention than I would like. So you will wear a disguise and stick to the shadows."

I put on the robe. Wesker opened a drawer, took out something shiny and handed it to me. It was a polished metal mask with a bird-like appearance and watery, irridescent red lenses for the eyes.

"As you will be the primary transmission vector for Uroboros, I thought the motif rather fitting. And should you be spotted, there would only be stories of a cloaked figure with a strange mask coming from a people perceived to backwards and superstitious. They would speak of you, and no one would believe them."

The mask had no bands to secure it, just black, rubbery-looking pads on the inside. I pressed it to my face. It held well. The pads had some sort of dry adhesive force that didn't require glue or tape. I pulled the hood up over my head, then stood still, waiting for his next instructions.

Wesker stood and looked me up and down. "Perfection," he said at last.

I knew he'd been turning me into a monster, and now the monster was complete, with a form that implied my function and a name that implied my purpose.

I was The Plague Doctor.


	11. X: Wetwork

Wesker got up from his desk. "And now we have business to attend to. Just follow my lead, and I'm sure you'll do splendidly."

He left his office, and I obediently tailed him. I felt a new kind of sickness; I was now just some loathsome thing at his side, a demonic figure meant to frighten and intimidate. To amplify his nightmare presence.

We made our way through maintenance tunnels to what I presumed would be a secret entrance and exit. It would be the first time I'd left the facility since being reawakened. I dreaded being exposed to sunshine and fresh air. I thought it might feel like being shackled on a prison bus, on a warm summer day, driving past a park where people were laughing and playing and kissing.

We emerged into a cave, a strange place deep underground where flowers somehow managed to grow, now illuminated by work lights and surrounded by high-tech equipment. Wesker and I passed them slowly.

"Ah yes, these flowers should be of special interest to you, Jill. The property that lets them grow so deep underground comes from a rather peculiar virus – the Progenitor virus, the source of all that you have fought in your career. Umbrella, the T-virus, Uroboros, even the P30 serum that gives you your strength; it all flows from Progenitor. Fascinating, isn't it?"

My mind reeled from the notion that these simple flowers had caused so much death and suffering, and might even represent the end of humanity as we knew it.

We left the cave to find ourselves in an underground ruin. It was a truly remarkable place, with elaborate carvings and statues serving as a testament to the genius of a people now surely long gone. But it wasn't entirely uninhabited. As Wesker and I carefully made our way through the ruins, I spotted people – indigenous people, I presumed from their manner of dress. They looked diseased, though, their mottled skin and twisted faces hinting at some horrible pathogen. There was a stench of rot and corruption not unlike the undead victims of the T-virus, but these people moved much more quickly and purposefully. They stalked us like animals in a zoo, unable or unwilling to attack us.

I thought back to my BSAA days, trying to correlate their condition with any known B.O.W. I recalled Leon Kennedy's report on the Ganado, the parasitically infected, mind-controlled villagers he encountered in Spain.

"Las Plagas," said Wesker, as if reading my mind. "Rather hard to come by. These people, the Ndipoya, have been guarding these ruins and the Progenitor flowers for hundreds of years; I thought, since they have proven so effective at it, they would be a good choice to guard Uroboros and the Tricell facility as well."

I was sickened by the notion of it, of Wesker deliberately infecting these innocent people to use them as his personal, disposable army. I wished I could draw my automatic pistols and release the Ndipoya from this suffering, but all I could do was listen to Wesker's repugnant voice and follow.

Finally, we made it through the ruins to another cavern, this one leading to a lake. A boat was docked there, waiting for us. Wesker piloted the boat to a dilapidated, rusting pier; he moored there, and he led us to a rugged truck covered by the underbrush of the African savannah. He indicated that I should drive. "The coordinates are already programmed in, just follow the GPS," he said, climbing into the passenger seat.

"We're heading to Kijuju to deal with a small obstacle. It's nothing major - not usually the type of task I take care of personally. But it's a good opportunity to see how you handle yourself in the field, as well as a chance to show the people of this region just what happens to those who cross me. They need to see you, to speak of you with fear. Should be fun for everyone."

We drove there in silence. I was glad I didn't have to listen to his twisted voice – being that close to him for this long made my skin crawl, made me feel like a raw nerve. After about ten minutes we arrived at our destination. We were in an area that was technically part of Kijuju, but far from the heavily inhabited areas. A church. Looked like a Catholic church.

"We're going to talk to one Father Kendrick. He's been saying a lot of nasty things about a friend of mine. We're here to shut him up. You'll know what to do. Now let's go say hi."

I trailed Wesker as he entered the church. The man I presumed to be Father Kendrick was leaning on a wall near the pulpit. He was a chubby, Irish-looking fellow. Three grubby locals were gathered around him – they were talking in hushed tones. All four of them noticed us. Kendrick stood up straight and the three men moved tensely to stand between us and him. Kendrick and his men were nervous, and they were right to be.

Kendrick spoke. "Who are you? What do you want?"

Wesker continued his slow approach. "Is that how you greet your congregation? I'm just a lost soul, looking for redemption. Perhaps you'd like to hear my confession."

Kendrick showed less fear than the men near him. "I know who you are. You work with that Tricell company."

Wesker smiled. "You are well-informed. But you've been saying some very unfortunate things about a friend of mine: General Obasanjo."

Kendrick spat. "Obasanjo is a thug and a monster! He cannot be allowed to take power in Kijuju."

Wesker: "Perhaps Kijuju needs a firm hand at the wheel." We were now about ten feet from Kendrick.

One of the men spoke: "Don't come any closer!"

Wesker put up his hands and stopped. He nodded. It was imperceptible to all but me. I sprung into action, leaping for Kendrick.

The men moved to block me, but a flurry of kicks sent them all flying into walls and corners. In the blink of an eye, I had Kendrick on his knees, my arm around his neck in an impossible-to-break chokehold. He spoke with great effort.

"You can… do what you want to me. The people here are not afraid of Obasanjo… or of you!"

Wesker laughed. "Well, we'll just have to do something about that, won't we?"

That was my cue. As his men looked on helplessly, with minimal effort I twisted Kendrick's head and snapped his neck. I heard a grunting sigh leave his body. I let go and he slumped to the floor. He'd never had a chance. I saw no opportunity to resist this order, felt no weakness in the effect of the P30.

Wesker looked down at Kendrick's crumpled form. "You know, I never thought of this. When a priest dies, who reads him last rites?"

And with a derisive laugh, Wesker turned to leave and I followed. The men who had tried to protect Kendrick just lay there, frozen in fear and shock. They'd gotten their show. Whoever this Obasanjo was, he wouldn't be getting quite as much bad press from now on.

On the ride back, I was not blessed with Wesker's silence.

"I have to tell you, Jill, that could not have gone more perfectly. You exceed my wildest expectations. Just to imagine: the gifted straight arrow from STARS who went on to be one of the heroes that took down Umbrella, now at my right hand, helping to bring about something far worse than anything anyone in Umbrella ever dreamed of. I just have to know: how does it feel?"

I had to answer honestly. "Every moment is worse than the last. I pray only for death."

He laughed, savoring my suffering like a fine wine. "Well, you could never tell by the enthusiasm and effort you put into your work. Who know, Jill? Perhaps, as you learn more about Uroboros, you may come to see that I have a point. You may come to see things my way. Is it so much to ask that you keep an open mind?

"I'm sure your initial reaction will not be a positive one. Uroboros will kill millions, perhaps billions, when it is unleashed on a worldwide scale. But those of us left standing… we will be the next phase of human evolution. We will be something new, something beautiful and powerful. And I will rule all as a God!"

He lapsed into a self-satisfied silence. My mind reeled at what he had told me about Uroboros. He was so strong, his operation so effective, so powerful. Uroboros was so deadly. I deeply feared that he could win. Chris and I had always regarded Wesker as the greatest threat we could face, but I was realizing we were still underestimating him.

* * *

Later that night, as I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, I started to smell something that wasn't there. It was the salty spray of the sea. Knowing what was coming and glad of it, I closed my eyes and found myself back at the beach house.

Chris and I were sitting on a bench on the deck. He had his arm around me; my head was resting on his shoulder. Together we watched the waves crashing onto the ivory sand.

"You'll never guess what I did today," I said, breaking the silence. "I killed a priest. I killed him in front of his followers, for show."

Chris turned his head towards me. "Jill Valentine didn't kill anyone today. These are Albert Wesker's crimes, not yours."

I smiled a wry smile and wiped a tear away. "They sure feel like mine. I'm the one left with the memory."

"Jill, you're in uncharted territory, there's no question about that. But there's something you have to realize. In your place, anyone else would have given up by now."

"What's the difference? Nothing I feel matters. Given up on what? Why shouldn't I give up? I'd still be Wesker's engine of death."

Chris's tone was one of steely conviction. "The difference is, giving up means giving in. It means submitting to Wesker's will, it means following him by choice. Can you really throw out your remorse, your compassion? Could you really say to yourself 'Screw it, this is what I am now' and embrace your role as Wesker's executioner?

"No one in the world could have come through what Wesker has had you do. Anyone else, _anyone_ else would have broken long ago."

Broken didn't sound terrible to me right then. "I just want it to be over, Chris. I don't see any way out of this. The rabbit hole just goes deeper and deeper."

I wasn't looking at Chris's face but I could hear the smile in his voice. "Have a little faith, partner."

I knew what he was hinting at. I left the comfort of his embrace to stand up and face him. "Don't. Don't you dare do that."

"Do what?" he said with that innocent look that always made me laugh, but not this time.

"Don't hint around at things. You're trying to suggest that there is hope. The world thinks I'm dead. No one is coming for me. _You're_ not coming for me. I can't let myself feel hope, it hurts too much."

He gave me the all-too-familiar look that let me know he saw through all my bluster. "Right, Jill."

"Right what?" I said, my voice rising in indignation. I hated when he did this in real life, when he cut through my defenses like butter. I didn't hate it that much, though. I hated it the minimum amount as dictated by my gender.

He just sighed, further stoking my building tantrum. "You know damn well, deep down inside, that I never gave up on you. Maybe I did try to accept the idea that you were gone. Maybe I did mourn you and try to move on. But let's just cut through the crap: You know there's no way I would ever give up on you, and you know there's no way you would ever give up on me.

"Hope may hurt, but it's what's keeping you going and you know it."

Deflated, I sat down next to him. We watched the circling gulls in silence for a bit.

"It's getting bad out there, Redfield," I finally said. "I mean really bad."

"I know. And it's going to get worse."

"And there's not a goddamn thing I can do about it."

He turned to me. "Actually, there's two goddamn things you can do about it."

Huh?

He looked at me expectantly, waiting for me to respond. Great, now I have to work out riddles? What two things were in my power?

I smiled. It wasn't really a riddle. It was just his way of making me take charge of my own destiny, even trapped in a body I could not control. I gave him the answer: the only two things in my power.

"Watch and wait."

He smiled back, returning his attention to the glistening sea. "You should get some rest, Valentine."

"I hate sleep. Actually, what I hate is waking up."

I thought back to the time following death of my mother. I remember that feeling I would get when I woke up in the morning – for a few seconds, it was just a typical day, and then the horror would flood over me as the reality of my existence took hold. Every day was like that now.

But he was right. I had spent all the time I needed to here, and spending any more time would be, at least to me, a dereliction of duty.

"Just hang in there, Partner," he said. He was quieter and farther away already. "It'll get worse before it gets better, but it will get better."

I had more to say to him, but I figured I'd save it for another time.

And with a pop, I was back in my bed, in my suite, in the secret Tricell facility, under the ruins of a great civilization, in the middle of Africa.

I found myself wondering what Wesker would do or think if he knew about my secret retreat. Knowing that I had some small means of escape, some relief, some comfort in the midst of all this would no doubt infuriate him. I wondered if he could do anything about it. What if he ordered me never to go back? It didn't seem like such an order would take; the parts of me he controlled had little to do with the part of me that went to the beach house.

In any case, it was all academic. Wesker would never know. I'd never tell him. I realized that I had a secret from him, a powerful secret. That made me smile and let me relax enough for sleep to claim me.


	12. XI: Excella

The next morning, my PDA awakened me. It was Wesker.

"Jill, I have an easy job for you today. You're going to meet one of my more useful allies. Excella Gione, the head of the Tricell Pharmaceutical Corporation's West African division. Of course, her work is about more than just discovering the next generation of anti-depressants. She has some errands to run; all you need to do is drive her, protect her and follow her orders as though they were mine. Meet her at the garage at oh-nine-hundred hours."

I used the second exit from the Tricell facility; through another ruin, an underground temple, there was an elevator that led to a shipping yard, the location of the garage that Wesker had referred to.

I showed up as ordered, in full Plague Doctor regalia. In the garage, I found a rather voluptuous woman in a low-cut white dress, leaning against a car, looking annoyed and bored.

"Excella Gione," I said, "I have been ordered to assist you today."

She was silent for a bit. "You look like a bird, you know that?" She laughed, and stood up from her leaning position, moving for the passenger door.

"Come on, let's go, bird lady." I hopped in and we drove off. The destination was already set in the GPS unit, so I just followed the route laid out for me.

The morning sun beat down upon the car. We drove in silence for a while, which Excella finally broke, much to my disappointment. I figured any friend of Wesker would be as repugnant as the man himself.

"I hate this place," muttered Excella to no one in particular. She certainly wasn't confiding in me; I was just an excuse for her to talk to herself. "This entire backwards continent. The dust, the filth. I can't stand these wretched Africans. Millions of pointless lives, scratching in the dirt, hacking at each other with machetes."

She turned to me, looking through me rather than at me. "But when Albert is finished cleansing the world, things will be very different. And I'll be right there at his side."

She seemed to suddenly realize I was there, even though she'd been talking to me the whole time. "I certainly hope you don't have any delusions about your role in all of this, bird lady. You are a soldier. When Albert has no more use for you, you will be retired. You have no place at the table."

Was she serious? Was she jealous of me? Did she think I had some ambition to be a part of Wesker's madness? To usurp her twisted fantasy?

She backed down from that nonsense to focus more on the situation at hand. "I don't expect anything to happen, but Albert tells me that you are well-trained and ready for anything. Is that true, dear?"

"Yes," I answered.

"'Yes, _mistress_,'' she corrected me.

"Yes, mistress," I said, the words making me sick inside.

I was glad when we pulled up to our destination; it distracted her from her idiotic ramblings. A weaselly man in a dirty suit was leaning against his own car, and he approached us as we parked and got out.

"Excella!" he exclaimed with oily charm. "Lovely to see you as always." His New York accent was thick and nasally. He reminded me of Ratso Rizzo from Midnight Cowboy.

"Irving," said Excella with a dismissive sneer. "Have you have a message for me?"

"Straight from the man himself," said the weasel. He reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a yellow scrap of paper, handing it to Excella, who read it eagerly. I got a full and clear look at it; it was a note, apparently written in Swahili. I couldn't speak or read the language, but it seemed that Excella could.

She smiled. "Excellent."

"Good news, then, I take it?" said Irving, clumsily fishing for information. Apparently he was just a go-between in whatever this arrangement was.

"Nothing you need to concern yourself with, Irving," replied Excella, shutting him down. She handed me the yellow note. "I have everything I need from this note, bird lady. Please eat it. We wouldn't want it falling into the wrong hands."

God, what a bitch. She could just as easily have had me burn it, but she relished the power over me and enjoyed my humiliation. There was nothing about eating a piece of paper that contradicted any orders I had not to cause myself harm, so I simply said, "Yes, mistress." I tore off a corner of the paper, put it in my mouth and started chewing.

Irving chuckled. "Now that's loyalty for you!"

"Oh, the bird lady here is nothing if not loyal. Now, Irving, is there anything else?"

Irving smiled. "How about a raise?"

Excella flashed a smile that was rather predatory. "You just keep doing your job, Irving, and you won't have to worry about your future, I promise." Irving just smiled back weakly, sensing it was best to wrap this encounter up before his mouth got him into trouble.

I'd been quickly chewing and swallowing bits of the note. I put the last corner in my mouth as Excella turned to leave. It didn't matter that the note was gone; I may not have been able to understand the language, but I'd taken a good look at the note as she held it, and with my memory, that was as good as taking a photograph of it.

"Okay, bird lady, let's go. I'll be in touch, Irving."

"I eagerly await further opportunities to be of service!" he said in an obsequious, fawning tone that told me his exact place in the pecking order. Excella made no further comment. Her mind was already elsewhere.

As we drove back to Tricell, Excella's rambling started up again.

"The worst thing about this job is having to deal with people like Ricardo Irving. Doesn't he just make your skin crawl?" _Not just him, lady._ "The greedy fool is trying to sell half of the Tricell weapon catalog to terrorists and militia all over the world, and he thinks we don't know anything about it.

"Ha. Let him. The world will be burning in the crucible of Uroboros before he collects a single Euro. Besides, men like him, as repugnant as they are, they still have their uses. I have to admit that Irving has a way of getting things done. When we failed to procure samples of the Las Plagas pathogen from our initial source, Irving was the one who came through for us. I have no doubt we can find a way for him to be of service to us again, when the situation demands it."

Impatience crept back into her voice. "Can't this thing go any faster? I hate it out here."

I gladly punched the accelerator. The faster we got back, the faster I'd be rid of her.


	13. XII: Surveillance

A few days later, Excella contacted me by PDA to give me another mission.

"Hello, bird lady. I have a little problem that I believe you can help me with. That grotesque we met, Ricardo Irving, is trying to set up one of his deals to sell Tricell bio weapons. We don't care what he does as long as he doesn't jeopardize Uroboros. I just need you to spy on him today, take some pictures - see who he meets with and see who takes an interest in him. Do you understand?"

"Yes, mistress," I answered.

"Good. My sources expect him to arrive at the butcher shop in Kijuju to meet a contact around 11:00. Be there and be ready."

"Yes, mistress," I repeated, wishing with all my heart I could call her something else.

"Bring me the photos when you return," she said, and disconnected. It was 9:00 already, so I'd have to leave right away; I geared up for the mission and left the Tricell compound.

Checking my PDA map for the exact location of Kijuju, I moved quietly and quickly through the ruins to the hidden dock under the mountain, took the boat to that rusted pier, and stole off through the brush for Kijuju.

I soon found myself in the heavily inhabited area that was the heart of Kijuju. It was ramshackle and filthy, a place of poverty and desperation. And, as is usually the case, also a place of clever and frugal utility. Nothing is wasted in a place like Kijuju – scrap metal shores up crumbling buildings, old pallets and shipping crates become ladders and balconies, mud and dirt become mortar for rough-hewn wooden boards used to patch up old walls. I'd been to many such places and always found them something of a wonder. The conditions were decrepit, but somehow never changed much over the years – in the West, we depend upon central institutions to maintain infrastructure, but in the third world, in the absence of these institutions, things seemed to almost fix themselves, like a body healing over with scar tissue. Not pretty, but sufficient to keep things from falling to pieces.

No one saw me as I found a concealed perch that gave me a good view of the butcher shop Excella had mentioned. It was 10:30; looked like I'd be waiting a while. I took a few pictures and used my binoculars to study the area around me.

The people of Kijuju were filthy and poor, going about their sullen affairs without a hint of joy. For some reason I found myself thinking some nasty thoughts about them; their filth, their lack of ambition, their unwillingness to work towards improving their lot. It wasn't like me to think that way. I didn't know where it was coming from.

I saw a white woman, who struck me as American, walking through the market area. I saw the glares she got as she passed vendor stalls, could almost make out the hushed whispers she left in her trail. This didn't improve my opinion of these people; now I saw them as ignorant and judgmental.

Luckily I was pulled from this train of thought by the appearance of Irving. I snapped pictures and watched him carefully. He approached the butcher shop from the side; a stout, desert-tanned man in white robes and a turban stepped out to meet him, and they spoke.

Training and experience combined with my heightened senses as I watched this butcher. He was undercover. I didn't know for what agency – Interpol, the BSAA, perhaps some national government – but in my eyes he might as well have been holding up a big sign that said UNDERCOVER OPERATIVE. I doubted Irving had the slightest idea.

Soon their business was complete; Irving continued past the butcher shop and I silently trailed him from the rooftops. He was heading towards what appeared to be an abandoned industrial facility. When he reached it I found myself another secluded perch that allowed me good lines of sight into the building. It seemed that he was just there to scout the place, probably to see if it was a secure enough place for a meet. The place appeared to satisfy him, and he left. I trailed him some more, but he got into his car and departed. His business was done here, and so was mine.

I returned to Excella with the photos as ordered, handing her the memory stick from the camera.

She wordlessly took the stick and slipped it into her laptop to begin viewing the photos. "Irving met with a man at the butcher shop. I'm positive that the man was an undercover operative but I don't know for whom. Irving then scouted the abandoned building you see in the photos, presumably for a meet of some kind."

"And that's everything?" asked Excella.

"Yes, mistress. After scouting the building, he got into his car and drove away."

She turned to me. "Very good, my lovely bird lady. I will have my people find out who this butcher is, and we'll see how much of a threat he poses to us."

"Yes, mistress."

With our business concluded, Excella now had a different look in her eye that made me distinctly uncomfortable.

"You know what I could use, bird lady?" she said in that sultry yet condescending voice of hers.

"No, mistress."

"A back rub. I just have so much to deal with, the tension just knots up all my muscles."

Oh God. She couldn't be serious!

But she was interrupted by her PDA. It was Wesker.

"Excella," he said, "I could use your assistance in the laboratory."

"Coming, Albert," she said in a sing-song voice. As he disconnected, she turned to me.

"I guess that backrub will have to wait, bird lady. Dismissed."

"Yes, mistress."

I was immensely relieved – the idea of my fingers touching her flesh was thoroughly revolting to me.

I returned to my suite, thinking about the day's events. My negative feelings towards the people of Kijuju had actually surprised me. I didn't know where they were coming from. I knew full well that the difficulties of the existence of these people were due to many outside factors: a history of exploitative colonialism and civil war, of narcissistic warlords killing and torturing whoever stood in their way, of failed states and kleptocracies and the failure of the international community to offer any meaningful assistance. These people were no different than any other people anywhere in the world; they were doing the best they could with what they had. There but for the grace of God go I.

I knew all these things, but knowing them and feeling them are two different things. Something was very confused somewhere inside me.

I felt deep disappointment in myself, and a good deal of worry that I was losing some essential part of me.


	14. XIII: Obasanjo's Army

The next day I was summoned to a conference room to meet Wesker.

"Good morning, my lovely Jill. You've been doing well in the field, but for the next few days we have plenty of work to do on the home front. I am having a meeting soon that I would like you to watch over.

"We will be receiving a guest named General Obasanjo; he is the chieftain of a local militia. He has recently communicated to me his willingness to make a deal that will benefit the both of us."

I didn't know why he was bothering to tell me any of this. I didn't need to know the details. I didn't want to, either, but the only duty I could execute was to be a witness to as much of his madness as I could, so I listened intently.

"However, I would be a fool to trust this man because I would be a fool to trust any man. It's likely all I will need you to do today is to watch for any attempt to interfere with our negotiation, but if something happens, I want you to be ready to act. Protect me. Protect this case. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good. I do hate having to deal directly with unsavory characters such as those we'll deal with today, but some things you just can't trust to underlings. Oh, I'm not talking about you, Jill. I have no doubt that you will show me a loyalty I could never hope for in others."

He was just saying that to twist the dagger. He thought he could make me suffer more than he already was.

Wesker's PDA beeped and he grabbed it, pressing the answer button.

"The General has arrived, sir."

"Please bring him in."

In a few minutes, Obasanjo entered the room. He was tall, about six foot five, and massively built. Like most self-styled military leaders, he wore an elaborately decorated uniform and a sharply creased beret. I thought back to the STARS beret I used to wear. What looked cute on me looked grotesque on this hulk.

Obasanjo was followed by no less than six fearsome-looking armed men, who took their place behind him as he sat down at the table across from Wesker. I took my place standing at Wesker's side.

Seven against two, but the two were Wesker and me. If this deal went bad, Obasanjo would be the one to pay.

Things started on the right foot, though, as Wesker spoke. "I was pleased by your thoughtful and gracious note, General." I assumed he was referring to the note Excella had made me eat.

The General smiled. "You have done me a very generous favor, Mr. Wesker." I presumed he was referring to Father Kendrick. "I see now that you are a good man to call a friend."

Wesker smiled back. "I just want to do what's best for the region. I believe that we can help each other."

Obasanjo, leaning back into his chair, regarded Wesker with steely eyes. "Yes, I am intrigued by the possibilities of that which you offer. What is the price I would pay for your… assistance?"

Wesker leaned forward. "Right to business. Good. I am looking for a thousand well-trained soldiers."

Obasanjo barked a laugh. "A thousand men? Are you making a joke? That is half of my army!"

Wesker tapped his fingers on the attaché case. "General, when you see what Las Plagas can do, you will realize that half your army will be enough to control all of West Africa."

The smile fell from Obasanjo's face. He was more than intrigued. I got the sense he knew exactly what Las Plagas could do for him. "Five hundred men. I cannot spare more."

"I apologize if I led you to believe we were bartering, General. I was trying to cut through the formalities and get right to the heart of the matter. A thousand men is what I need, no more and no less."

The room suddenly filled with tension. This Obasanjo was an unknown quantity; men like him, sharks in small ponds, tended to have an unrealistic sense of their power and strength, a warped vision of their own immortality. Had Wesker made an unfortunate breech?

Finally the General released the tension with a laugh. "I appreciate your being forthright, Mr. Wesker. Very well. A thousand of my men will report to your facility at oh-nine-hundred hours tomorrow morning."

Wesker, nodding his approval, gave the attaché case a small shove, sending it across to the General, who stopped it with one meaty hand.

"It is always a pleasure to do business with a man of vision, General. I cannot wait to see what you can achieve with the help of Las Plagas."

The General stood. "And I wish you the best of luck in your own efforts, Mr. Wesker. Perhaps, when this deal has been fully consummated, we can discuss that other matter and come to another arrangement."

Wesker stood as well. "As I said before, General, you are misinformed. I don't know where you get your information, but the things you speak of are no more than rumors and superstition."

If the General was disappointed, he didn't show it, and he didn't seem convinced. "I see. I wonder what a man such as myself must do to earn your trust? Time will tell, I hope."

With that, the General left, his men trailing behind him. Wesker again felt the need to explain things to me. It was fine with me; my only use was as a repository of information, not that I held out hope anyone would ever make use of it.

"I have just given the General a thousand samples of Las Plagas Minor. This is the non-infectious strain of Las Plagas; it's good for building up a deadly threat force, which I am sure the General intends to do. It is also the strain we will use on the men he has given us, to deploy throughout this facility. We must be prepared for a breech; the BSAA is unpredictable.

"Naturally, these men he sends us are not volunteering to become parasite hosts. We will administer the Las Plagas as part of a thorough medical workup. The organism acts fast, so our operation will have to be very precise – move some men into the medical lab, give them the shot, and move them out as quickly as possible. I will want you to supervise this entire process, and deal with any situations that arise. Be ready at oh-nine-hundred. Dismissed."

I left for my suite. We were about to kill a thousand men and turn them into monsters. It didn't matter to me that these men were armed thugs who killed unarmed women and children with thoughtless obedience. What would be done to them was just as monstrous as what they had done in their careers, but their crimes did not justify this sentence.

Morning came and I did as ordered. The operation went off without a hitch. Soon, the disciplined, impeccably groomed men of Obasanjo's army were just rotting afterimages of themselves, with grey, mottled, sore-riddled skin and sagging, decomposing features. They robotically manned their weapons just as they had in life, but with complete obedience to Wesker and no thought of saving themselves or each other. Plus, I knew some small handful of them, upon death, would mutate into something far worse and far more deadly. God help the forces that went against them.

The entire Tricell facility was soon filled with their decomposing stench.


	15. XIV: Trap

After Wesker's new army was in place, I was summoned to his office.

As I stepped in, I saw Excella sitting on the couch next to Wesker. His arm was rolled up, and she was giving him an injection of some kind. Next to her was an open attaché case, full of pre-filled syringes. Looking at the one in her hand, I could make out a code of some kind. P67… but her finger blocked the rest.

"There you are, my dear Albert."

Wesker seemed agitated. He was becoming more and more impatient to see his plan come to fruition.

"Perhaps you should give me another dose now, just in case."

She shook her head. "That would be a bad idea. The dose must be precise in quantity. Every three days, in this exact amount."

Wesker nodded. "Very well."

They looked at me. Excella smiled.

"Well, if it isn't the bird lady!" she said, relishing my helplessness. She wasn't mad like Wesker. She was a bully. She craved power. She was in this for the idea of wielding unchecked authority. I could sense her looking at me with an unsettling hunger. She craved more playtime with me.

Wesker turned to her and said in an annoyed and stern tone, "We really should tell Jill what she needs to know so she can get on with her work."

She nodded and closed up her attaché case. Strolling past me, she said in a low voice, "Pay close attention, bird lady!" And with a wicked giggle, she leaned on a table behind me. I could feel her eyes burning into me, like a cat waiting to pounce.

Wesker was rolling down his sleeve. He walked toward his desk, gesturing for me to sit across from him. I complied.

Between us on the desk, I saw a small, clear case that contained a number of pre-filled syringes, with what appeared to be reddish creatures swimming around in them. The sight of it made me want to throw up.

He regarded me in silence for a moment before speaking. "You've done very well so far, Jill. So well, in fact, that we are ready to begin the end game. Now that we are in the final stages of the Uroboros project, I have a very important mission for you.

"These," he said, gesturing to the syringes, "contain a new and refined variant of the Las Plagas parasite. Very useful in building up an army of disposable, compliant and deadly soldiers. Their power will be in their numbers, as well as tactical unpredictability."

Three of the syringes were made of red glass. "I'd like you to pay special attention to these three samples. They contain a very special strain called 'control', capable of causing extreme mutation. Very useful in creating an instant threat of great size and destructive power.

"Jill: I am going to need you to travel to the Kijuju Autonomous Zone. As it turns out, that butcher you photographed for us is working with the BSAA, and it would seem that he's onto that greedy idiot Ricardo Irving. I don't care what my people do in their spare time, as long as they are discreet and do not interfere with Uroboros, but Irving has managed to attract a bit too much attention, and his usefulness to the project is not quite over yet.

"So we will turn Irving's sloppiness to our advantage. The intel gathered by the BSAA will lead them to the original meeting place that Irving had set up for the deal, although he has since changed his plans. Kijuju is where the hunt for Irving will begin. A general infection of the populace with Las Plagas will slow things down considerably. These few samples should suffice – once infected, the subjects will be able to infect others. It shouldn't take more than a day for the entire village to succumb. You will leave after the sun sets and complete your mission under cover of night."

The entire village. How many was this? Dozens? Hundreds? Turned into mindless killers, grotesque in their mutations, for all intents and purposes dead upon infection – walking corpses, no less so than the T-virus infected inhabitants of Raccoon City. I would be wiping out entire families, ending bloodlines for all time. It wasn't just genocidal; it was the death of an entire history, a small civilization here in the cradle of humanity.

I knew all this, but again was surprised at how callous I felt about the task. Was I turning to numbness because compassion was too painful?

It was Excella's turn to speak. "You will also find Irving there, trying to destroy any evidence of his dealings. You must assist and protect him; we cannot risk having him fall into the hands of the BSAA, as he will most certainly tell them anything they want to hear in order to save his own skin. It is especially important that he cleans up his mess – you must make sure that he understands this.

"The meeting that Irving had set up was to take place in an industrial facility in Kijuju. It should be empty as it has recently been closed down by UN inspectors. That's where you will find him."

Wesker nodded, satisfied with my mission spec. He concluded the briefing.

"These are your orders. Dismissed."

Helpless to disobey, I loaded my messenger bag with the Uroboros samples and wordlessly departed for my suite to wait for the sun to set.

* * *

I sat, still and quiet, cross-legged on the floor in the living area of my suite, as I waited for nightfall. My camouflage robe was hanging from a hook near the door; I held the plague mask in my hands, looking at it as it looked back at me. Those dead red eyes would be the last thing many people in Kijuju would see tonight. I let it drop to the side with a clatter and closed my eyes, wondering why I didn't feel worse about the imminent genocide that would be my evening's duty.

I heard the sounds of the sea fill the space all around me, and opened my eyes to see that I was sitting on the beach, watching as the sun set. Chris was sitting next to me. The house was behind us.

I felt hard and numb, resentful in a way that I'd been pulled into this fantasy place of mine. My words sounded cold and unfeeling.

"I don't need to be here," I said, looking out over the ocean. "I have a job to do tonight and I'm going to do it."

"It's that easy?" answered Chris.

"Yeah, it's that easy," I answered. "I've seen these people from Kijuju. They live like animals. They burn with hate and ignorance. It wouldn't take much for them to mob up and go after all the foreign devils."

Who was this talking? How could these words be coming from me?

"So it's just like slaughtering animals," said Chris quietly.

"Yeah," I sneered. "Maybe it's a mercy killing." I got up and started walking along the beach. Chris followed.

"Jill," he said more sternly, "this isn't you."

"Of course it's not me. Wesker killed Jill Valentine a long time ago."

"You don't believe that."

"I'll tell you what I believe. I believe the path that is laid out for us is put there for a reason, and we can't always know the reason."

"So now you think it's your destiny to kill hundreds of innocent people?"

"It must be, since I'm going to do it no matter what."

"Your body is going to do it, Jill."

"What's the difference?" I said, starting to shout. "What's the point of saying it's not my choice? It's going to happen anyway! What's the point of being a good person deep inside if you can't do anything to affect the outcome?"

"So," said Chris, just as quiet as ever, "it's just easier to go along with it. To choose to be a murderer, to choose to help Wesker. If you think of those people as worthless animals, you can say that you're just, what, performing a little pest control?"

His words infuriated me. "You don't know what you're talking about!"

He continued. "Hey, maybe Wesker is right. Maybe the problem is not just these Kijuju savages, but the human race itself. You could step up and become his right hand of judgment, help him purify the world once and for all!"

My eyes teared up as my heart race. I tried to slap him, but he caught my hand.

"What do you want to do, Jill?" he asked. "What do you really want to do?"

Had I really let myself start to think that these people I was to kill deserved their fate? How had it come to this?

I could no longer pretend that any part of me could possibly go along with Wesker's madness. "I want to stop Wesker! I want to warn these people that I'm coming and tell them to run! God, Chris, I just want to go home!"

I collapsed into a cross-legged sitting position on the sand, fighting back bitter tears. Chris crouched in front of me.

"Jill," he said, "Wesker has your body but he can't touch your soul. Only you can let him get inside your head. Look, maybe there will come a time when you actually can do something to fight him. Maybe your actions will determine the fate of all. But if you lose yourself to him, you lose that chance. And if that happens, Wesker won't be the one who killed Jill Valentine – you will."

I looked at him. He started to shimmer and fade before I could speak, and then I was back in my suite. I looked at the clock on the wall. 7 PM. It would be late dusk now. Time to get ready.


	16. XV: Infection

Having made my way through the ruins and piloting my boat to that same secret pier, I started my silent jog to Kijuju. The half moon shone down upon me; but for the glitter of my red eyes, I was invisible. Though I was running at a near sprint, I didn't even break a sweat; the well-engineered body suit seemed to be good at dissipating heat, or maybe my body was that much more efficient under the influence of P30, generating only the energy required for the effort being asked of it.

Kijuju was a very quiet place, but I was quieter. I saw an isolated man enter a tin shack. Barely raising any yellow dust, I darted in behind him before the door closed. I made no sound and touched nothing but the floor. He had no idea I was there as he reached for a plucked, hanging chicken. I spun him with one hand and silenced him with a quick jab to the throat using the other. Now he couldn't scream.

Before he had time to react, he was pinned to the ground, this menacing masked form hovering over him. I withdrew one of the Las Plagas syringes. He had no way of knowing what it was, but it was a sight that would alarm anybody. I deftly palmed the syringe and slapped it into his neck. It worked fast; through his skin I could feel things changing inside him, structures being broken down and rearranged. He thrashed in confusion, then in pain, then it was just seizure spasms. This was his brain firing off random signals as something deep inside him selectively killed off chunks of it, editing him out of his own body.

Blood flowed from his nose and eyes, and he was still. Tossing aside the syringe, I got up and watched over him.

He began to twitch. I heard an animal growl. He stumbled to his feet. His skin had taken on the pale grey sheen of a sun-ravaged corpse. I couldn't believe how fast it all happened.

He looked at me, seeming not to know what to make of me.

"Go. Infect others," I ordered him. He wordlessly shambled out, as obedient to me as I was to Wesker.

I looked at his wretched, limping form as he went forth, wondering if he had a wife, a family. I saw him enter an old trailer across the way. The sounds I heard told me he was doing just as he was told. I couldn't even cry.

Satisfied that he was going to be an effective disease vector, I found more worthy recipients at different spots, equally spaced along the village borders. Tactically, this was the best way to insure maximum infection and make escape as difficult as possible. I worked well through the night until my syringes were gone and the sun began to crest the horizon.

My mission to infect Kijuju and wipe out its people completed, I scanned the village and spotted the black, sooty form that had to be the industrial building Wesker had mentioned. No one saw me head towards it, skimming the rooftops without a sound. Irving was waiting for me by the back door.

I dropped to the ground like a cat, causing him to jump back, startled. As I stood, he recovered and threw his chest forward, acting like he was fully in charge. "Okay, bird lady, I got some work to do and I'm told you're going to be my support. So just follow my lead and do exactly as I say, and we'll get this taken care of. One big happy ending for everybody!"

There was no reason yet to disabuse him of his notions about who was running the show. I just stood there quietly.

"Good. Silence implies consent. I read that on a fortune cookie, I think. All right, let's go." He slung a messenger bag over his shoulder and launched himself into a cocky walk, entering the building. God, how I hated this guy.

"Those BSAA idiots are on their way to Kijuju. They think they're gonna bust in on me here, but they're in for a surprise." He reached into his bag and pulled out a big, nasty-looking fluid-filled syringe. Suspended in the fluid was a wriggling black mass of oily, wormlike filaments. I hadn't seen it before, but I somehow knew right away that I was looking at Uroboros.

He off-handedly tossed me the syringe. "All you have to do is find us a suitable host and infect him with this. When the BSAA advance team gets here, they won't stand a chance. Now go ahead and get it done, I have places to be."

My orders were to assist him and protect him from the BSAA; I did just as he said.

I walked to the front of the building, looking out and scanning the street through a broken window to see a man sitting on the building's front steps, smoking a pipe. He didn't even know what hit him as I snatched him through the open door behind him. Anyone watching from the outside could be forgiven for saying that he simply vanished in the blink of an eye.

I propped him up on his knees. He started to whimper; I held up a finger to my lips (beak?) giving him the universal signal to keep silent. Terrified, he nodded. By the last nod, the Uroboros syringe was in my hand. The needle guard was off; he took a breath to scream, but before he could, I covered his mouth with one hand and slammed Uroboros into his neck with the other. I felt it become suddenly active, working its way into his body, rendering him incapable of speech. I removed my hand from his mouth, and began to study his twitching, dazed face carefully.

I walked around him as he knelt there feverishly, waiting for the sign. He began to convulse and his eyes turned jet black. A gurgling noise was starting to build inside of him, a noise that told me it was time to leave before he tried to make me his first victim.

I returned to Irving and nodded. He gave me a thoroughly repulsive smile and turned to leave. "I got a car this way. Come with me."

I followed, sickened by what I'd done and by what was about to happen.

Once in the car, Irving reached into his bag and pulled out a laptop. Firing up the laptop, he launched a program that appeared to show video feed from security cameras throughout the industrial facility. He put his feet up on the dash. He wanted to see what his products were capable of. He wanted to enjoy the show.

With nothing else to do, I watched over his shoulder. It did not take long for the BSAA advance team to arrive; I could only watch in horror as they were efficiently eliminated by the oozing black mass that was Uroboros. Between Irving switching feeds and the chaos of the action, it was hard to tell exactly what was happening, but it wasn't hard to see that the BSAA team was completely overwhelmed. They died so fast.

The initial action was just about over. Irving switched from signal to signal, satisfying himself that the BSAA agents were taken care of. "Looks like things are cooling down here. I need you to take me to the mines so I can complete my business. Let's just make sure we're not gonna be followed."

Starting the car, I watched the video feed on Irving's laptop intently. I could not take my eyes off of it, just praying like hell that the worst wouldn't happen. I knew it would hurt to see Chris, but it would break my heart if he didn't survive that monstrosity that had wiped out the advance team.

Irving had settled on the camera in the garage, where the BSAA vehicles had been stowed; we watched as Chris entered the garage with a short but fit young African woman, apparently his acting partner for this mission. They'd survived that horrible creation and killed it. I was glad, but seeing him hurt more than I'd feared, knowing he was now tangled up in this until the end. And not only could I not protect him, I was bound to do everything I could to stop him, to break him, even possibly to kill him. I knew his moves, his strengths, his weaknesses better than he knew them himself. He was among the best field operatives in the entire world, and if he came up against me, I'd shatter him into a million pieces.

But Chris was alive, and I could not have been more relieved.

The feed wasn't very high res, but both Irving and I could see that Chris had something in his hands and he was plugging it into a BSAA laptop for an uplink. Evidence of some kind? I looked at Irving's face, fear and frustration creeping over it. Definitely evidence, something he did not want them to find.

"Let's go," muttered Irving impatiently as he closed the video feed. He was clearly annoyed that Chris and his partner were alive. He moved on to casually browse other documents, his feet still propped up on the dash. If he was worried about his failure to secure that data, he wasn't showing it. And so it was on to the mines. Hopefully his incompetent streak would hold.


	17. XVI: Irving's Mess

At the mines, Irving again acted like he was running the show, instead of being babysat until he could clean up his mess. "Follow me; there are documents up in the office that I need to destroy. The trail will end here."

"You go to the office. I'll be watching from outside." It was tactically sound – let him act as bait for Chris and Sheva so I could get the drop on them if anything happened. I was glad it worked out that way; if I was in the office with him when they arrived, a confrontation would result and I would be forced to hurt them.

"What? Are you crazy, lady? You want me to walk out there like a sitting duck?"

"Nothing will happen to you, I'll make sure of it. Just get those documents."

He choked off a response. My tone was firm. He was starting to wonder who was in charge here. Good.

He started jogging towards the stairs leading up to the office as I silently found a nearby perch with good lines of sight through the office windows.

I hadn't even had a chance to settle in for my wait when I saw Chris and Sheva round the corner. I was surprised to see how quickly they had gotten here; Irving's sloppiness had led them directly to the mines. I realized that his stupidity might be the one thing that saved us all. They charged up the stairs after him and burst into the office before he'd had time to do much of anything.

I got ready to make my entrance. Irving wasn't in danger yet; they wouldn't shoot him even if he pointed his gun at them. They needed him for information. I would wait for the right moment to make my move.

I strained to hear the heated dialogue between the three of them. I couldn't make out the words but I saw three guns, all pointed towards the center of the room. The sense I got was "Mexican standoff." It was time to act.

I leapt to the roof of the office while tossing a smoke grenade fluidly through an open window. Landing with the silence of a cat, I gripped the edge of the roof and swung myself over, crashing through an opposite window. All three of them were down and choking on the cloud that now filled the room.

The horrid mask I was forced to wear offered protection against the fumes – my vision was clear and free of tears. I grabbed Irving, telling him "Hurry!" as I rushed him to the open window.

The egotistical fool couldn't stop himself from gloating. "Suckers!" he cried, waving his gun back at Chris and Sheva. As I leapt out the window, I grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him through. He tumbled backwards, landing awkwardly on his back in the dirt.

"Jesus! I'm not a sack of potatoes, you stupid bitch!"

"We have to go, now!" I grabbed Irving by the collar and started dragging him back to the car.

I was reeling inside. I'd barely had time to process it while it was happening, but now the full force of it hit me: for the first time since the Spencer Estate, I'd been in the same room as Chris, not ten feet from him. Unable to speak to him, unable to grab onto him and hold him tight. Unable to do anything but obstruct his mission. Just a twisted mercenary, the puppet of a genocidal madman, passing through and doing a job. With my heightened senses, I'd even been able to smell him through the acrid smoke: that peculiar and specific combination of soap, shampoo, deodorant and sweat, as different for each of us as our fingerprints. His scent lingered in my nostrils as the world came back to me and we made it to the car.

I dropped Irving by the passenger door and made for the driver's seat. He climbed in, his dignity bruised and his confidence shaken. We peeled out before Chris and Sheva could recover.

"You could have broken my neck back there!" he said, rubbing his head.

"Did you retrieve the documents?" I asked. Back to business.

He sat there in silence.

"I asked you a question: Did you retrieve the documents?"

The force with which I repeated the question shook him even further. I had the feeling he was starting to understand his situation.

"No, those two BSAA idiots got there too fast. If Excella's little pet project had done its job on them…"

"Don't worry about Excella. You have your own job to do, and so far you're not doing it very well."

"Hey listen, you freak, you're just hired muscle!" he spat at me with plenty of rising panic but little conviction. "I don't need you to tell me about my job! You just do yours! Now get me to the oil field!"

Nothing more needed to be said. He got the message. I just hoped it wouldn't do any good – if he kept up his losing streak, the Uroboros project would be undone by morning.

Irving fished his cell phone out of his pocked and dialed a number. I could only hear his part of the conversation. "It's me. You know what to do. Have it driven to the mines immediately." And he hung up. His cocky swagger seemed all but gone.

I drove Irving to the oil field as requested. He got out, wordlessly, stalking away. I wasn't sure what he had in mind to do next, but I had completed my mission as requested – infect Kijuju, assist and protect Irving. I contacted Excella on my PDA.

"Yes, bird lady?" she answered.

"Irving has returned to the oil field. The BSAA advance team was wiped out in a trap we set for them, but two operatives found evidence there and tracked us to the mines. Irving was trying to retrieve some documents there, but the operatives surprised him and I was forced to extract him before he could destroy the documents. It is likely that they will be able to continue in their mission, and possibly find him here. He called someone to have something driven to the mines; my assumption is that he was referring to a B.O.W. intended to kill the agents."

She just shook her head. "I knew that idiot would bring us trouble! I've already gotten word that the agents killed whatever that thing was he sent to greet them. Well, at least you have done your job well. I think it is time that Mr. Irving performed us one last service, don't you, bird lady?"

I understood exactly what she wanted me to do.

"It won't be easy to convince him," I pointed out.

"It will be easier than you think. A man like Irving will grab any opportunity to cheat death, even if it is a fate worse than death.

"Make sure he knows what he has to do, and then return to Tricell. We have much work to do as we ready to unleash Uroboros upon the world!"

And in a flash, she was gone.

I knew Irving would try to escape on his well-armed yacht. I drove a motorboat around to the side, climbed aboard undetected by his crew, crept into a hallway, and waited in the shadows for him.

About forty-five minutes later, he entered the hallway, looking preoccupied. I stepped out in front of him.

"Jesus Christ!" he cried. "You almost gave me a heart attack!"

Time for the big finale. I steeled myself for the horror I was about to unleash upon him.

"You have failed Excella every step of the way. It's time to pay for your mistakes."

"What do you mean? It's all taken care of!" protested Irving. "The hard drive, the data, the documents – none of it matters now! I sent a very special delivery to the mines! There's no way anyone left that place alive!"

I was glad to shatter his confidence. "The BSAA operatives defeated the B.O.W. They're heading to the oil field as we speak."

Fear started to creep across his features. If he'd had any doubt about his precarious situation, he didn't any more. After a tense pause, he continued to fumble for an out: "Well, look, that's not a problem. I'm not taking any chances this time – I got this place rigged to blow. Between the explosive charges and the oil reserves, this place will be a smoking ruin before sundown! I'll just make sure the explosion take those BSAA rats out as well!"

"And when that doesn't kill them? What then? Your incompetence has led the BSAA right to you and to Tricell." I was the stern judge and jury, about to turn executioner. Who was this grotesque bitch speaking? Whose words echoed deeply from behind this hideous mask? I wanted so much to pretend the voice was not mine.

Irving's futile struggle continued: "Hey, without me, this entire operation would be nothing! I'm the man with the contacts! I'm the one who put Las Plagas right in Wesker's hands when no one else came through for him! I get things done!"

And he was about to get one last thing done. "Excella has a final task for you. You won't fail her again."

The creepy opportunist's eyes widened as he sensed the chickens coming home to roost. He fumbled to open the attaché case next to him, to show me bricks of gold spilling out. "Look, look at all this! It's yours! Just let me take my boat here and sail off into the sunset! You and Excella will never have to worry about me again!" Some part of me found being offered a bribe funny in a sick way. _If I could, I'd take you and your gold right to BSAA headquarters, you pathetic bastard._

Ignoring his sad attempt at deal-making, I slammed Irving against the wall, holding him easily with one hand. "What are you going to do about them?"

He tried one last time to assert a pretense of authority. "You're just one of Excella's playthings! It was your master who –"

I needed his full attention. I lifted him against the wall by his neck. "One more time – what are you going to do about them?"

Whatever resistance was left in him completely melted away as he grabbed my arm and struggled for the breath to speak. "All right! I'll handle it!"

I let him drop. As he coughed and held his throat, I produced one of my syringes. Las Plagas, the control strain. He knew it right away; he was as familiar with the Tricell weapons catalog as anybody, having sold as much of it as he could to terrorists around the world. I held it out for him. "Use it."

"This?" he said, his voice as broken as he was.

I stood there, frozen, waiting for him to accept his fate. Finally, he took the syringe in one shaking hand. Excella was right – he'd rather live as a twisted abomination than die as a man.

My work was done. I turned to leave.

He shouted after me in weak protest. "Ha ha! You know what's funny? I have to use this stuff to become an inhuman freak – but you're already there! Ha ha ha ha ha!" I felt a pause in my step; he had a point. But my stride picked up as I made for the stairs.

Ricardo Irving was still cackling madly when I left him there, never to see him again. I thought of what he'd become when he used the Las Plagas on himself. He was the lowest of lowlifes – he sold the most terrible weapons in the world to the most terrible people in the world. I'd want to see him in a prison cell for the rest of his life. But I wouldn't wish this fate on anybody, no matter how unforgivable their crimes. I'd seen what Wesker's sick medicine does to people. How could anyone even conceive of inventing such things?

As I walked toward the side of Irving's yacht, I saw Chris, his partner, and a man I recognized as Captain Josh Stone running for the docks. I was done here - time to leave. I leapt over the railing into my boat, and sped off for the cave. I figured they'd seen me. In fact, I hoped so. If I could somehow continue Irving's streak of mistakes, I might lead them right to Wesker. Or to their death.

Explosions crashed like thunder behind me. I looked around. It was a big and destructive blast, but not quite the fireworks show Irving had promised; no doubt the oil fields were more empty than he had hoped. There was a very good chance that Chris and his support had survived. I hoped that they hadn't been hurt, but I was pretty sure of all of their skills. I knew I'd see Chris soon, and I didn't know how to feel about that.


	18. XVII: Endgame

As I veered off from the oil field through the lake, I called Excella on my PDA.

"Well, bird lady? How did it go?"

"Irving failed to keep the evidence from falling into BSAA hands. We destroyed the oil field as instructed. He agreed to use the Las Plagas control strain to engage the remaining BSAA agents and finish them off."

Excella scowled. "I always wondered if that idiot was more trouble than he was worth. Well, what's done is done, and you at least have succeeded in your job even as Irving failed in his. I see now why Wesker speaks so highly of you."

Praise from Wesker. The idea sent cold blood coursing through my veins.

"Come back to Tricell, and let's finish this once and for all."

I was fine with finishing this; I just didn't hope for the same ending as she did.

I piloted the boat back to the little alcove that was my secret backdoor. Navigating the labyrinthine ruins was easy for me, but I saw many opportunities for Chris and his partner to get themselves hurt or killed. I could only hope for the best. I made my way to the hidden entrance to the Tricell facility and hoping this would be the last time I'd make this journey. I met Excella in the control room of one of Wesker's defense stations.

"Finally!" she said as she packed an attaché case with the syringes I'd seen before. "I will need your protection as we finalize the plan. Everything is in place. I just need some time to prepare, and then I will need you to get me out of here safely."

I waited as she tapped at her PDA and double-checked the syringes. As she was finishing up, Wesker joined us.

"Albert!" she said, as always pleased to see him. How anyone could love this monster was beyond me, but I'd seen Excella that was her own kind of monster. They deserved each other. I hoped they'd drag each other down into the flames of hell.

"Just in time for your medicine, my dear," she said, preparing one of the syringes.

"Good. Jill, please keep watch and let us know if we have any… intruders."

"Don't worry about them, Albert. I've arranged for a welcoming party."

"Don't underestimate Chris Redfield, my dear. He is exceedingly stubborn and single-minded, and obnoxiously hard to kill. Apparently, Jill, he's somehow got it in his head that you're still alive."

What?

I was flooded by emotions, both good and bad. _Is he here to save me? I knew he'd never give up on me! No, Chris, turn back, if Wesker doesn't kill you, I will. But no one else can stop Wesker! Oh God, what if he sees me like this? What if he sees that I am just Wesker's pet monster, as twisted and broken as Wesker himself? Could I bear Chris's hatred?_

"I sense conflict within you, my dear," intoned Wesker. "Let's just cut through all of that: Go outside and monitor the security feed. If anyone arrives, please let me know.

I obeyed, leaving the two of them to their business.

I went to the nearby security station and watched the feeds. They alternated between the many different areas of the compound – the detention area, the experimental laboratories, the Licker cages, the belts that conveyed spent corpses into huge blast furnaces. I took in all that went on here, thinking about all that had gone on here for all these years. I'd had it right when I first started to become aware again in cryo. This place was Hell.

After a few minutes, I saw the two BSAA agents as they entered the "secret garden" – the underground cavern where the flowers grew that had spawned the creation of the original Progenitor virus, the source of all the death and suffering that were Umbrella's legacy. Soon they would enter the facility. They would be here.

I went back to the office to interrupt Wesker and Excella. I had the sense that she was unhappy and he was unconcerned. She'd probably hinted at something he didn't want to give her; it didn't matter to me. "The BSAA are here," I said, all business. _And they're going to kick every ass on their way to you, you son of a bitch._

Excella's frustration turned to antagonism. "It appears your old friend, Chris Redfield, has come to pay you a visit. Do I sense concern?"

Unsurprisingly, Wesker wouldn't take the bait. All business, he replied, "The plan is in its final stages, I will not tolerate delays."

Excella let out a dismissive chuckle, then left his side to grab her precious attaché cases. As she briskly walked out, I turned to follow her. My job was to see that she escaped safely, and nothing would get in my way.

As we walked, Excella punched at her PDA, bringing up one of her uninfected assistants.

"The BSAA agents have arrived," she said, "so let's make sure they feel welcome. I think the U8 creature ought to give them something to do."

"Yes, Miss Gionne," replied the assistant as she disconnected.

I didn't know what the U8 creature was, but I'd seen enough in my time here to know that it was probably very large and very deadly.

Soon, we were in Excella's office as she made her final preparations to depart. She brought up the video and audio feed from the cryo-chamber. I watched the feed as she went about her business.

The U8 turned out to be some sort of gigantic spider-like thing, with what appeared to be an incredibly tough exoskeleton. But Chris and his partner were holding their own.

"Sheva!" I heard him shout over the noise of the hellspawn as he tossed her a grenade. "Use this!"

Sheva… so that was her name. If she'd come this far with Chris, survived this much, who knew how much further they could go? Perhaps they could stop Wesker. But I refused to let myself feel hope. I saw no path to a good outcome.

Now Excella was watching as well. Sheva popped the pin on the grenade as Chris stunned the creature, causing it to collapse to the elevator platform. With a fluid move, Sheva slipped towards the gigantic, fetid mouth and popped the grenade right in. She and Chris dove for cover.

Then there was a flash and some static in the feed, and the U8 was falling into the deep chamber, defeated.

"Damn!" cried Excella, pounding her desk in fury. She quickly worked to regain her composure, tapping at her computer.

"Oh, how sweet, bird lady. You know why they are in that chamber? Your boyfriend Chris is looking for you."

My eyes stung. They wanted to tear up, but my body wouldn't let them because crying wasn't part of the mission.

"Well, let's just let them see you're not there, and maybe they'll have the sense to turn back."

We watched as Chris and Sheva descended on the elevator platform, finally stopping as a pod was pushed out from the far wall. The pod that had been my repository for two years. The front hatch spung open, the fluid drained away. I watched Chris's face drain as he saw it was empty.

"Damn it!" he cried out, "where is she?"

Oh my God. I heard it in his voice. Chris wasn't here because of the BSAA. He wasn't here because of Ricardo Irving and his shady deals. He wasn't here because of Uroboros.

He was here looking for me.

Everything else was secondary. He'd never accepted that I was dead, not really. I should have known; without a body, Chris could never accept what seemed obvious to everyone else.

Fighting back hope was never harder than it was at that moment.

Excella punched into her computer again, displaying herself to Chris and Sheva.

"Mr. Redfield," she purred. "How nice to finally make your acquaintance."

"Who the hell are you?" he snapped back. God, how I missed that way he had of cutting to the chase. I loved hearing him talk to this repulsive woman that way.

"Excella Gionne," answered Sheva. "She works for Tricell."

"Nice, you've done your homework," Excella said, dripping with contempt and condescension.

"An officer in the Global Pharmaceutical Consortium," continued Sheva. "Why?!"

"Hmmph! As if I need to explain myself to you." Excella really did hate dealing with "common" people. "Although, weren't you two given orders to retreat?"

"So it _was_ you!" said Sheva, her frustration rising as she started to understand who and what it was she was dealing with.

So they were given orders to back off, and they pressed on. That was my Chris for you.

"Where is Jill!?!" shouted Chris impatiently.

"Jill? Even if I did know, you think I would tell you?" said Excella. I knew she was relishing this, toying with Chris as I sat just off-screen.

"Cut the crap! Tell me where she is!"

I started to feel a very real sense of dread. I knew now that Chris was on a mission, and he would not stop until he had found me. And when he did, it was entirely possible that I would be forced to kill him.

Excella tired of this game of hers. "As soon as you two are done with your little vigilante mission, you should leave. There's nothing here worth throwing your lives away for," she said, and cut the feed. She turned to me.

"And what is your assessment of the situation, bird lady."

"They won't stop until they've found me. If I don't stop them, they will continue on until they defeat you and Wesker, and eliminate the threat of Uroboros."

She nodded. "I thought as much. Well, if it's Uroboros they want… let's give them a taste. Come with me to the test facility."

She snapped her laptop shut and grabbed her attaché cases. Her work here was done.

* * *

When we got to the test facility, a test subject was already strapped into a chair, all ready for us. I accompanied Excella into the room and watched as she retrieved a syringe. Uroboros.

The man in the chair struggled weakly, grunting, unable to speak. He hadn't been out of cryo long.

Excella tskked at him as she readied the syringe. "There, there. I have some nice medicine for you, to make you feel so much better." And with that she jammed the needle right into his neck. He gasped and started to twitch.

"Come, bird lady, let us enjoy the show from the balcony seats."

We left the chamber for the dark observation deck above the small maze, and watched the poor man twitch until we saw Chris and Sheva enter the room. Excella pressed a button; a door slammed shut behind them; she pressed another, and his restraints were released.

Chris and Sheva carefully scouted the room until they saw the test subject, sitting there still, his head down. He looked almost peaceful. They approached him as I screamed inside my head for them to run.

Excella leaned over a microphone and pressed a button at its base. "Well," she said, "glad you could make it."

The BSAA agents looked around in confusion.

"Up here, you two." They looked up and spotted her. _Us._

"Excella!" snapped Chris, still driven in his mission. "Where's Jill!?"

I knew Excella was savoring this. I stood right next to her, in full sight of both agents.

"Jill, Jill, Jill," sneered Excella. "You're like a broken record, you know that? Just as single-minded as he said." She leaned back a bit, anticipating the violence she was about to enjoy watching. "You've spent so long trying to track down Uroboros, well, here. Enjoy."

And with that, perfectly on cue, the test subject rose from his seat, breathing savagely, on his way to becoming something new and horrible. Chris and Sheva trained their guns on him.

Black patches started to grow across his flesh like ink stains; Uroboros wormed its way through his flesh, causing his skin to ripple and stretch. It was grotesque, horrible. Tentacles burst forth from his shoulders, writhing in the air. He seemed to actually enjoy what he was going through as he stalked Chris and Sheva menacingly.

"So Uroboros is a new B.O.W." said Sheva, carefully keeping her weapon trained on this new threat. "And you're planning on selling it to terrorists."

_Oh, Sheva. If only._

"Good guess," Excella said thoughtfully, "but no. While it does resemble the B.O.W.s based on the Progenitor virus, I have no intention of selling it to terrorists."

"Then what are you using it for?" asked Chris, starting to clue in to the horror that was the true nature of Uroboros.

The thrashing of the tentacled figure slouching towards Chris and Sheva stopped as all the tentacles snapped back inside of him. It appeared that he was exerting control over Uroboros.

"Evolution," continued Excella. "It's a Philosopher's Stone, one that will choose through DNA who shall proceed to the next stage. My vision and his combined, now made a reality."

The Uroboros-infected man started to pick up his pace as he stalked his quarry.

"Evolution? What are you talking about?" asked Sheva. It was quite a lot to get their heads around, to believe anyone would do this on purpose.

"Aww, you'll find out soon enough," answered Excella with mock sympathy. "Everyone will."

Suddenly, whatever control the test subject had been able to exert started to falter, as he began to twitch and drip black worms.

"Hmm, too bad," said Excella. "Looks like he wasn't worthy. Only the chosen ones are fit for the coming new world."

Whatever was happening to the test subject, it was accelerating. I couldn't bear the thought of watching what would happen next, but luckily Excella turned to leave and I obediently followed.

"Excella! Wait!" I heard Chris shout, followed by the stomach-turning sound of exploding flesh – Uroboros. But I couldn't turn to see what was happening, and I didn't want to. All I could do was send Chris my silent prayers; either give him the strength to defeat this enemy, or let his death be quick and with as little pain as possible. My money was on Chris. Which I knew meant that soon he and I would face off. I thought about all this as Excella and I headed for the underground temple, for the elevator that lead to the dock where her tanker ship was moored.

And that pretty much brings us up to date. I stand here in the temple, in the shadows, watching as Excella makes her way to that elevator. I use her as bait the way I used Irving, ironically the best way to keep her safe. If they lived through their encounter with Uroboros, any moment now, Chris and Sheva could burst through that door. I don't know what will happen then, but the best I can hope for is my death. I cannot be allowed to stop them from getting to Wesker. But I know that no matter what I want, I will try with all of my effort to keep Excella and Wesker safe from them. Please, just let me make one mistake, one fatal flaw. I know that if I die at his hands, the burden could be too great for Chris to bear, but Chris and I swore to take this fight to the end - to destroy Umbrella and all of its hellish spawn. So, though I am loathe to wish that he pay such a price, our oath demands it.

Of all the ways this could play out, I don't see a scenario in which I live, except for the ones in which Wesker succeeds. So I hope that, when the dust settles, I will not be around, and that this is the end of my story, even though it will die with me and no one will read it.

My name is Jill Valentine, and this has been my journal.


	19. XVIII: Ruins

There.

Everything you have read up to this point was written entirely in my mind, committed to perfect memory, as I described at the start. I wasn't sure if my memory would still be perfect after being removed from the influence of the P30 chemical, but it's been a while now, and everything I recall from that time is still crystal clear. You'd think you'd want your memory to be that perfect all the time, but having had to live like that for a while, let me tell you that you really don't. Memory is meant to be imperfect; if all memory were flawless, we couldn't cope. We wouldn't get past the pain of life. We couldn't downplay the awful and emphasize the better. I have perfect memory of about one year of my life, and I would give anything to forget. Granted, that particular year is about the worst year it's possible for anyone to have, so I may be biased on the topic. But even compensating for that, based on my experience, I do believe that if I had just as perfect recall of the other 30-odd years of my life, I would probably be writing this in my own blood on the padded wall of an asylum cell.

In any case, I'm overjoyed that I get to type the rest of this on a crappy, outdated PC, using a keyboard sticky from an orange juice spill and missing the left SHIFT key. I'm sure I could persuade Chris to upgrade his hardware, but I'm coming from a place where imperfections are to be savored, so I'm just going to proceed as is.

Now, where was I?

Ah yes. Protecting Excella as she made her escape from Tricell.

As Excella headed into the ruins for the elevator, I had split off from her and crept into the shadows. Tactically, I needed the element of surprise. I didn't know what to hope for; if Chris and Sheva showed up before Excella could make her exit, I would have no choice but to defend the bitch. However, if Excella escaped, Wesker's plans were that much more assured of success.

Thus far I had managed to avoid confronting my partner. After all the horrible things I had done, I feared that being forced to attack Chris would be the thing that would break me.

Soon my hopes were irrelevant. Excella wasn't halfway through the room before Chris and Sheva burst in, drawing their guns as Sheva called out: "Excella Gionne! Stop right there!"

I readied myself to attack. _Please, no. Not this. _Maybe a stray shot would kill me. I felt sick as I realized I hoped it was Sheva who killed me and not Chris; I wouldn't want him to have to live with that.

There was one saving grace: I had not been directly ordered to kill them, and tactically speaking, I didn't have to try. If I could disable them long enough to escape with Excella… but I couldn't hope for that, either.

Excella turned, clapping, ever the sneering villain. "Bravo!"

Chris betrayed his single-minded pursuit of me. "Damn it, where is Jill?"

I could tell from Excella's body language before she spoke that I was getting my cue. "Jill? Maybe I'll tell you, maybe I won't."

She hadn't finished the last word before I was airborne. I landed between Chris and Sheva. Divide and conquer. A flurry of strikes and kicks put them off-balance but failed to disarm them. Good._ Shoot me already. Make all this stop._

It was Chris who fired. So be it. Dead is dead.

But my reflexes were just a bit too fast. I leaned back. The bullet missed me, but caught my dreadful mask, which was sent flying with a metallic ring.

Tactical retreat. As the two fired upon me, I flipped backwards. My robe was flying everywhere, creating a larger and more difficult target for them.

Finally, the bullets stopped, and so did I. _Oh God. No mask. Did he see me? _

"Stop playing around! We want some answers!" Chris demanded.

A voice that was now burned onto my brain echoed throughout the chamber.

"You haven't changed," said Wesker.

"Wesker!" exclaimed Chris. "You ARE alive!"

"This is Wesker?" queried Sheva as Wesker chuckled, strolling down the stairs.

"We last met at the Spencer Estate, wasn't it?"

I knew then I was about to be revealed. Wesker had been waiting for this moment, waiting to show Chris what he had done to me, and he would savor both Chris' horror and my suffering. "Well, isn't this one big family reunion." I heard his footsteps and felt his presence near me. "I would expect you to be happier to see us."

"Us?" said a subdued Chris. I think he knew what was coming but didn't want to believe it.

"So slow to catch on," taunted Wesker. I felt his hand at the back of my neck, pulling at my hood.

And there it was. Wesker's order was implicit; let Chris see me in all my glory. I stepped forward to let myself be taken in. The look in Chris's eyes will haunt me forever.

"Jill…" he said, lowering his gun. "Jill! It's me, Chris!"

He thought I was brainwashed, somehow unaware of who I was or what I was doing. This gave me some small relief. I should have known he wouldn't believe I'd actually turn on everything we'd fought for.

"What? Are you sure that's her?" said a confused Sheva.

"The one and only," said Wesker. Those were the words, but the message was, "Attack."

Again I was airborne. I shrugged off the robe, my disguise now a useless impediment.

A full two-foot aerial kick had Chris falling back like a sack of rocks. My momentum was carrying me forward, so I was able to kick off of his chest again, using him as a springboard to flip backwards as Sheva started to fire. _Hit me! Please, HIT me! _But she only managed to squeeze off one round before I had kicked the gun out of her hand. I can't even describe the move I used to take her down, as it now seems physically impossible, but I slammed her into the floor like a practice dummy, getting myself between the two again. Chris would be recovering right about now, and he still had his gun. In the blink of an eye I had his arms tangled uselessly in mine, my hand at his throat.

_Resist! You can't let yourself hurt him!_

_No – Wesker doesn't want him dead yet so he's not in real danger. Save the opportunity._

Sheva was quicker and more resilient than I'd thought; I barely had had time to get Chris into a hold before she was right behind me, her gun at my head. Wesker took care of that, knocking her back as I extracted myself from the hold with a quick kick to Chris, followed by a powerful shove backward. He was back with Sheva and I was next to Wesker.

"Now," said Wesker, "let's finish this once and for all. I think the odds are fair, two on two. Right, Jill?"

I heard it in his voice, as clearly as if he'd said the word: sport. That's all Wesker was looking for. A bit of sport. He didn't need to take on this fight – Excella had made her escape, and there was nothing Chris or Sheva could do to stop either of us from making ours. In a way, this was good. I still had neither explicit nor implicit orders to kill.

"Seven minutes," Wesker continued. "That's all I have to play with you. Seven minutes."

And the hunt was on.

Wesker stalked his prey through the maze of the sunken temple. My job, as I understood it, was simply to be a nuisance. I hated the idea of hurting either Chris or Sheva, but this wasn't intended to be more than sparring.

After Wesker kicked him through a door, Chris wisely realized it was time to change tactics. They couldn't take him down, so their best play was to make him use up the entire seven minutes, to delay him as long as possible.

Of course, I was trying my best to run interference, to trip them up. They were good at this game of hide and seek, but with my finely tuned senses they weren't hard to locate.

I cornered Sheva in a back room. I paced around her, waiting to see what kind of a move she'd make, but she didn't attack. _Good, Sheva. Your best bet with me is to stay on the defensive. _I reared up for a roundhouse kick; she ducked it fluidly, slipping behind me and grabbing my arm. Before I knew what had hit me, she was throwing me over her shoulder. I slammed into the stone ground, hitting full-force with the back of my head and neck. I saw stars. It hurt like hell but it made me feel wonderful. There was no way she should have been able to get the drop on me like that. I had underestimated her, which meant that Wesker had underestimated her. _Keep it up, Sheva, together you and Chris might just be able to stop us._

As I shook off the massive hit I'd taken, I realized Wesker was abandoning the fight; the seven minutes were up.

"I expected more of a challenge after all this time, Chris. How disappointing."

I started to understand why we hadn't killed them. The best thing for Uroboros would have been to eliminate the two of them. But Wesker needed Chris, needed a great and powerful enemy to define him. In a sick, twisted way, Wesker was like me.

Without Chris, he thought he was nothing.

All of this, Uroboros, all his plans – without Chris there to witness the end of the world, Wesker's victory would never be complete.

Sheva's skill, Wesker's blindness to his pride – I was starting to see some good omens.

Maybe this wasn't the end after all.

As Wesker moved for the elevator, Chris and Sheva made a slick move up the stairs to confront him. I had already taken my place in the shadows as a silent guardian, waiting for the right moment to strike.

"Wesker, stop!" ordered Chris as he and his partner trained their sidearms on him.

Wesker just turned to watch. He knew what was about to happen and he couldn't miss the show.

Silently and with blinding speed, I slipped around the corner. I bounded off the wall and threw Sheva a kick that she was able to dodge. I now knew her moves well enough to have known she would; I was just setting her up for the second kick, the one that disarmed her. A reverse kick caught Chris in the solar plexus before her gun hit the ground. My final aerial kick sent Sheva slamming into the stone wall behind her. Why did this have to be so easy?

My hands gripped Chris's right forearm. I twirled it to slip behind him, catching him in the gut with an elbow. Before he could react, my grip on his arm tight as a vice, I did an aerial cartwheel that twisted his arm painfully and brought him to the ground. I landed with my knee on his neck, jerking his arm back around and sending his gun flying. It was over.

"Jill, come on!" he said. Oh God, his voice sounded so good. _Please don't make me hurt him any more. Please just give me that one mercy._ "It's me, Chris! Snap out of it!"

Wesker gloated. "Nice move, Chris. But now that your partner has arrived, I'll leave you two to catch up."

I felt my heart breaking as he said that. The implicit order was clear, an imperative in my mind that overrode all else.

"_Wait until I leave, and then make Chris suffer."_

My only comfort was that it was not an order to kill. But I was to cause him as much pain as humanly possible.

To acknowledge the order, I gave Chris one giant twist of the hand that surely sent stabbing pain all the way up his arm.

But he wouldn't give up.

"Come on, Jill! Get yourself together! Wake up, Jill Valentine!"

Something slipped inside me when I heard him say my full name. The P30. The control. There was a hiccup.

"Chr… Chris…"

I stumbled backwards, releasing him from my death hold. Oh no. Not now! Why now?

The pain began immediately, the internal fight, my mind feeling torn like flesh. I stumbled, head in hands.

I had had my chance, my one chance to resist, and I had blown it. If I had waited until Wesker was gone to resist… _Goddamn you, Jill!_

"Remarkable," sneered Wesker, pulling out his PDA. "Still resisting at such an advanced stage. Commendable, yet futile." He tapped keys and as I knew it would, all thought, all hope of resistance melted away. I fell to my knees, my body on fire. This was worse, worse than I'd felt before. What had he done? This was too much! Animal rage surged within me. I screamed; I could hear Chris and Wesker talking but I couldn't make out the words. I grasped at coherent thought but it was slipping away. I don't know how, but I realized I had one last chance, one brief instant of resistance. If they saw what had been done to me, maybe, just maybe…

Fighting with every ounce of my strength against primal urges I cannot explain, I tore open the top of my bodysuit, exposing the Jewel.

I sensed Wesker leaving. I was no longer able to make out words, but I could get their meaning. Wesker left with one last taunt, then I heard Chris and Sheva talk.

They saw the Jewel. They saw it was bad. And they resolved to get it off of me.

But the animal was unleashed from its cage. Wesker was gone. Orders no longer mattered. The mission no longer mattered. Jill no longer mattered.

There was only one thing in the entire world at that moment, and that thing was: kill.

The battle that followed is a red blur to me now. I fought them both with every fiber of my being. I defied gravity. I heard and felt Chris speaking to me, trying to get through to me. Sheva managed to hold me while Chris pulled at the Jewel with all his strength. It hurt. Imagine someone hooking a tow truck to your rib cage and then driving away.

I could feel the Jewel beginning to malfunction. It was sparking, sizzling. The injection apparatus seemed erratic as my strength surged and faded, surged and faded. I don't know how long we fought.

And then I felt things in my chest tear and give way. Somewhere deep I hoped I'd been shot.

But something strange and unexpected happened. The animal froze in fear. I saw a red mass in Chris's hand. I saw him toss it to the floor in disgust.

It was The Jewel. _Son of a bitch, Redfield, you actually did it._

Immediately the hangover started to take hold of me, and it was the worst one yet. Grunting and incoherent, shivering and sweating, I collapsed to the floor. I saw spots. I felt the light fading. There was a dark place hovering in front of me, and I wanted to go there.

_No. Can't give in. Can't pass out. Too much at stake._

But the darkness called and I felt myself swallowed by it yet again.


	20. XIX: Free Will

_Open your eyes, Jill._

Couldn't stay there. Couldn't lose my grip.

_Open your goddamn eyes!_

I blinked my eyes open. I was on the floor in Chris's arms.

"Jill! Are you all right?"

I guess everything is relative, because seeing his face and hearing his words made for the best moment of my life.

I had so much I wanted to say. He'd saved me. I never let myself hope he would, but at the same time I knew he'd never give up on me. And he hadn't. I wanted to scream, to cry, to hold Chris tightly to me and never let go.

"Chris… I'm so sorry…"

That would have to do for now.

"It's okay," he said with surprising tenderness. We gazed at each other. I wished we never had to look away.

Sheva looked on in concern. Thank God for bringing him to her; I'd seen her in action and she was amazing. I was so happy Chris had had her through all this. _Time for introductions, I guess._

"You're Sheva… right?"

"Yes."

How could I explain what I had been through? Would she believe me? Would anyone?

"I couldn't control my actions, oh, but God, I was still aware. Forgive me."

She smiled a little, every bit as tender, as understanding as Chris. "It's all right."

"Thank you." I was glad for their compassion, and I would happily have indulged myself in their support, but Wesker had made his escape and there was no time. I knew what he was about to do and I knew it would be a Hail Mary to stop him. I struggled to get to my feet with Chris's help. The hangover wanted nothing to do with being conscious, let alone standing up and talking, but I fought back as hard as I could. _Breathe, Jill. Slow, controlled breaths._

I found my balance and raised my head as high as I could.

"Listen, I'm gonna be all right. You two need to stop him." In fact, I didn't know if I was going to be all right, but I did know that if they didn't move now, life on earth was over.

Chris looked at me in disbelief. "We can't just leave you here!"

_I know, Chris. It's damn good to see you too. _

I'd known this would be a fight in itself, but someone HAD to reach Wesker, and it HAD to be the two of them. I was in no shape to help them; I would only hold them back. I couldn't go with them, and I couldn't let them stay. Every second counted. I realized they didn't even know yet all that was at stake.

"You have to! This is your only chance! If Wesker succeeds, Uroboros will be spread across the globe! Millions will die!"

Chris didn't want to let go of me. I understood. He had searched for so long. I had waited for so long. But we would both have to wait that much longer.

He tried to protest but I cut him off. I put all my conviction into saying "I'm all right!" I didn't know if I was, but for him, I needed to be strong now more than ever. "You need to stop him!"

Not working. _Damnit, Chris, don't pick this moment to dig in your heels with me!_

I grabbed his shoulders. "Chris! You're the only one who can! Before it's too late."

I thought back to the other Chris, my Chris at the beach house I was pretty sure I'd never own. I thought of what he'd said to me.

"Don't you trust your partner?"

When I said this, I wasn't sure if I meant Sheva or me, but I knew that Chris valued trust above all else. Loyalty was everything to him. If he didn't trust Sheva with his life, she wouldn't be here. If he didn't trust me, he wouldn't have done what he did for me. I felt a little bad about slipping in that guilt trip, but I had no other option. I knew he'd never hold it against me.

I saw the switch in his eyes. He had to do this. Not just for humanity. For Sheva and for me. He looked at Sheva, looked back at me, nodded and said "All right." It was done.

As Chris stepped into that elevator to pursue Wesker, I feared I'd never see him again. Either I would die in here or he would die out there. But if so, I'd had one last chance to take in his strength, and to show him mine, and that was something I never thought would happen. I allowed myself to feel just the tiniest bit of hope.

I turned to Sheva: "Take care of him." I knew she would. I knew her heart. She nodded and joined him.

The door closed on them as I watched. They were our only hope to survive Wesker's madness.


	21. XX: Flames

I was free. I was alone. I had to get out of that place.

I still had my twin submachine guns, full clips on my belt. I didn't know how steady a shot I'd be, but that's the nice thing about SMGs: ready, fire, aim.

I was steadier on my feet already. The worst of the hangover had passed, but I was still an aching mess. My chest felt like I'd taken a close-range blast of road salt from a shotgun, but I examined my injuries and nothing seemed major.

_Deep, slow breaths, Jill._

My way out would take me through the Tri-cell facility. I knew that Chris and Sheva had plowed the road for me, but there would still be plenty of Majini left to make my journey a fun one. And all my tricks, my powers, my strength, my agility, my flexibility – all of it was gone. I could only hope that whatever was left of I was before would be enough to get me through this.

_You got this far, Jill. You can make it further._

I wondered if free will was like riding a bicycle. I wondered if the fracture between action and contemplation in me was so irreparable that it would get me killed. Was I so used to following the orders of others that I would hesitate to follow my own?

_Okay. Do it._

I made my move. Back through the ruins, back into the place that had been my living hell. My lungs burned with the effort of pumping my legs. My mouth was dry, my eyes stung. But it was me, damnit, it was all me. My choice to act. My decision to move. The discomfort melted away. The training started to kick in. In Delta, this would have been a walk in the park.

I was lucky to encounter light resistance – black stains on the floor were a testament to how thorough Chris and Sheva had been. There were some pockets of Majini to take out, but I did so with an ease that pleased and surprised me. I wasted few bullets. _All right, Jill. Not bad._

Something was nagging at me, though. How would Chris and Sheva be able to take Wesker down? If anything, his strength had only grown. The strength that I now knew came from that serum Excella was always pumping into him.

What was that stuff?

I decided to risk a few minutes finding out. I found an unused terminal and started some search threads.

How do I narrow it down? Umbrella was gone, and he was getting it from Excella, so it was clearly produced by Tricell. It would also be pretty top secret. I recalled the numeric code I'd seen stenciled on the syringe. I'd only gotten a partial – PG6…

Got it. Tricell research database, using access codes Wesker had clumsily given me, trusting that I would never be capable of betraying him. PG67A/W. I scanned the documents as best I could: Apparently, an Umbrella virus had been the true source of Wesker's strength, but the instability of the virus threatened to kill him. PG67A/W was an anti-viral serum, a supplement to keep the virus in check, maintaining his health and strength. Without it, he would certainly lose his strength and quite possibly die. It said that he only needed an injection every few days, and I had seen him injected just recently. We did not have days.

What had Wesker said? "The dose makes the poison." I thought back to what Excella had said about how precise the dose had to be. I cross-referenced PG67A/W and overdose. The info that flashed across the screen made me smile. It's a damn anti-viral – an overdose would mean a cure. No virus, no strength.

"I've got you, you son of a bitch."

I used a nearby PDA communicator to contact Chris.

"Jill! Are you all right?"

"I'm fine. Don't worry about me." Like that would work. "Just listen carefully, there's something that I need to tell you. Wesker's superhuman strength, it comes from a virus, but the virus is unstable. In order to maintain balance, he must inject himself regulary with a serum."

Sheva piped in: "If we cut the supply of serum, he loses his strength."

"Affirmative. But he just took a dose, so it's gonna be a while before he needs another one. Listen, Excella said that the amount administered has to be precise. So if he injects too much, it should act like a poison. I think she used a serum labeled PG67A/W."

It was all I could do for them, and I couldn't hold them up any longer. "I'm gonna try to find a way to escape. You need to find that serum. Excella always kept it with her, in an attaché case..."

I heard explosions in the facility, distant but intense. Chris and Sheva started to break up. EMP interference. Damn, it had begun. I lost the signal and hoped what I'd given them would be enough.

I started to make my way to the surface, not knowing what I'd do when I got there. There were more pockets of Majini, not a problem, but this whole place was becoming unstable. Just once, can't I try to escape a place that ISN'T blowing up?

I dove through flames and climbed ladders. Every muscle in my body ached from the effort, but I kept pushing. I finally made it to the surface, the evening breeze blowing through stray strands of my hair. The explosions receded behind me in the Tricell bunker. I was free of that place forever.

I saw a truck nearby and ran for it. It was smashed up and undriveable, but there was a comlink in it. A BSAA comlink, as luck would have it.

I tuned to the most commonly used BSAA air support frequency. "This is inactive BSAA Operative Jill Valentine, number One-Niner-Three-Seven-One-Zero-XRay-Bravo, requesting extraction from a secured hot spot. Coordinates 6° 27' N, 3° 24' E. Repeat: This is inactive BSAA Operative Jill Valentine, number One-Niner-Three-Seven-One-Zero-XRay-Bravo, requesting extraction from a secured hot spot. Coordinates 6° 27' N, 3° 24' E." I knew that officially I was dead, but I had no other options than to use my own name and operative number and hope for the best.

Nothing. Damn. I was safe for the moment, but Chris and Sheva might need support. Someone needed to be ready to go in and help them.

I repeated my distress call a few more times before I heard a change in the static. A man's voice I didn't recognize said: "… position. Over."

"Please repeat last message."

"This is BSAA Captain Josh Stone, number Two-Seven-Seven-Five-Six-One-Delta-Foxtrot. It's good to hear your voice, Agent Valentine. Your partner Chris will be glad you're safe. I have a bird in the air and I am on route, hold your position. Over."

Thank God. Stone was the one who had helped Chris and Sheva. "Copy that, Captain Stone. Looking forward to meeting you. Valentine, Over and out."

I had a few minutes of quiet before I heard the beating of those blades. The chopper came over the trees with a roar – I stood in a clearing and waved both my arms. Stone made a nice smooth landing and I scrambled in. He handed me a headphone mic and I sat in the cockpit next to him, strapping myself in.

He let go of the stick with his right hand and extended it towards me. "Agent Valentine! Captain Josh Stone, call me Josh."

"Jill," I replied, shaking his hand with my right and pointing up emphatically with my left. "We don't have much time, I'll brief you when you're airborne."

He nodded and started to take us up.

"Chris and Sheva are going after a man named Albert Wesker. He's the one behind all this. He's planning to spread a virus, the Uroboros virus, throughout earth's atmosphere. I don't know how he plans to – "

He cut me off. "I think I do. A report came in just before I got here." He pressed a button on the console and I could hear the ground control feed.

" – bogie off the coast of Nigeria. Repeat: we have an unidentified bogie off the coast of Nigeria."

"Ground control, we have visual confirmation," replied the typically laconic voice of a trained pilot. "Heavy bomber with a full payload."

Jesus Christ. It was Wesker. He was going to use the missiles to spread Uroboros – and if they shot him down, it would spread just as easily.

"Scrambling 36th Tactical Fighter Squadron to last known position."

"Josh! They can't shoot that bomber down! The payload is Uroboros!"

Horror spread over Josh's face, and he pressed the console again. "This is BSAA Captain Josh Stone, number Two-Seven-Seven-Five-Six-One-Delta-Foxtrot. You must call off those fighters!"

"Please repeat, Captain Stone."

"You must call off those fighters! Bomber payload is a class A bio-hazard."

A tense silence followed.

"Fighters holding formation, awaiting further instructions."

Josh and I exhaled. "Will try to provide more intel as situation develops. Agent Stone out."

He looked at me. "This situation is completely fucked! If Wesker is already in the air, and we can't touch him –"

"All we can do is give it some time. I believe in Chris and Sheva, if there's a way to –"

Ground control came on the line again. "Bogie is going down, repeat, bogie is going down. Coordinates 13° 28' S, 16° 40' W." I knew the two of them could do it. I only hoped they weren't aboard.

Josh looked worried again. "Lots of volcanic activity in that area." We looked at each other, not needing to say what we both knew.

Taking that plane into a volcano was the best way to eradicate the threat of Uroboros. If this was their plan, it seemed unlikely that Chris and Sheva would make it out alive. But we had to try. We were their only chance of escape.

Josh leaned on the stick and spoke into the mic. "Captain Josh Stone. I have a bird in the air; we are heading to the site to attempt rescue operations. Rerouting to coordinates 13° 28' S, 16° 40' W."

It took us a very long, very tense seven minutes to get to the coordinates. We saw the smoke billowing up after about four of those minutes.

As we approached, I got out of my seat and clambered to the back, unhooking the rope ladder. I could hardly bear to look.

A rejuvenating relief washed over me as I saw Sheva and Chris scrambling away from the wreckage of a heavy bomber being swallowed by red hot lava. Josh was already in position, and I wasted no time throwing the ladder down to them.

"Grab on!" I shouted. Sheva jumped for the ladder, followed by Chris, just seconds before his tenuous footing was also lost to the lava.

I smiled to myself. _Damn you, Redfield, why do you have to cut it so close_?

I helped Sheva aboard, and together we pulled Chris's bulky frame aboard as well. Our relief would be short-lived, however. With the potent combination of his super-strength, the PG67A/W serum and Uroboros, even molten lava could not put an end to Albert Wesker. Something writhing and black caught my eye. Wesker had taken his own medicine.

Rising up from liquid fire, the new thing that had been Wesker roared: "Chris!" as a massive black tentacle shot from his arm to wrap the landing bar. The chopper shook like we'd endured a missile strike.

I spotted the twin RPGs mounted next to Chris and Sheva, glad that Stone was the "better to have them and not need them than need them and not have them" type.

"Chris, Sheva! Use those!"

I could see that the two of them were a pretty bad-ass team. They were set up and ready to fire in seconds.

After all I'd been through, it surprised me that I didn't wish I was there next to Chris, firing one of those rockets at the man I hated with more passion than I'd ever felt for anything in my life. So why was I glad to see Chris and Sheva taking care of this nasty business? The best answer I can come up with is that I just don't like to hate. I suppose hate has got its place in the world, and lord knows we'll never be rid of it. I certainly feel it from time to time just like everyone else, but it just tastes wrong to me. Hate clouds your judgement. It diminishes your humanity, and I'd lost enough of myself as it was. It felt good to let go of that desire I'd harbored all this time: to choke the life out of Wesker, to perforate him with an icepick as he'd had me do to Mosi, to feed him his own horrible creation and watch it destroy him from within. I'd always be the person that _wanted_ to do that, but I'd never be the person that actually did it – that _enjoyed_ doing it. The one thing I could say about myself is that, no matter how many times I'd killed, no matter who or what I killed, I never enjoyed it. They don't give you a medal for that, but I was proud of it all the same.

But maybe I could enjoy watching someone else do it. Maybe that was a vice I could indulge. Just this once.

"Suck on this, Wesker," said Chris with relish, and he and Sheva fired.

I watched the rockets travel in what seemed to be in slow motion. The last I saw of Wesker was a rocket blowing through his head as though it were tissue paper.

And then there was a ball of fire filling the sky in front of us, and Albert Wesker was erased from the earth, taking his deadly creation with him. Chris, Sheva and I looked at each other. It was over. Finally.


	22. XXI: Morning

As we watched the fireball that had been Albert Wesker dissipate into the morning sky, Josh charted a course that would get us to safety as quickly as possible.

The events that followed are much more fuzzy and tangled – you know, like real memories are supposed to be. Once the P30 hangover faded, I found myself feeling frayed, exhausted, lacking the clarity, focus and quick thinking I'd become accustomed to. I was just plain old Jill. I fucking loved it.

We made our way to a coastal military base, where we were met by a balding, mustachioed wall of muscle with a bulldog's face and a nametag that said 'Pyke.'

Chris, Sheva and Josh saluted him. I felt like a bit of an outsider. I wasn't an active BSAA operative so a salute wasn't required, and I still wasn't sure what my place was in all this, whether I was a rescued operative or a captured enemy in the eyes of the BSAA.

Pyke saluted back in that off-handed "let's get this out of the way" style. "Captain Pyke, I didn't know you were in Africa," said Chris.

"I got thrown on a plane when you started knocking down doors, Agent Redfield," Pyke replied. He was the type who smiled with his eyes instead of his mouth, which he did to let Chris know that he wasn't being dressed down. Chris let slip a hint of a sheepish grin.

Pyke turned his attention to me. My stomach knotted up. I realized I was still in that damn Tricell bodysuit, and suddenly I felt disgusted by it; I wanted to tear it off as a way of distancing myself from Wesker and his evil.

But Pyke wasn't preparing to dress me down either. "And you must be Jill Valentine."

"Yes, sir," I replied stiffly. He still had that smile in his eyes.

"Looks like you're not crazy after all, Redfield. Welcome back to the ranks of the living, Agent Valentine."

He put a special emphasis on the word "agent", even though I was not merely deactivated but technically dead. It was a sign of respect, which meant that was exactly what he would get from me in return.

Chris answered my questions before I could ask them. "After you went missing, Captain Pyke was drafted from the Navy Seals to run North American BSAA Headquarters. He authorized this whole operation."

"I don't know exactly what I authorized, Redfield, but it sure wasn't the mess we ended up with. You know how much paperwork there's going to be after all this?"

Chris smiled. Pyke wasn't serious. I knew the tone of "thanks, soldier, job well done" intimately.

"All right," said Pyke, wrapping up our initial encounter, "you all get to medical and get yourselves checked out. We're going to have to one hell of a long debrief after that." He nodded, our cue to leave.

The four of us got separated as we entered the medical facility. No way around it. I got the most thorough examination; I tried to explain all that I had been through to the doctor who was examining me, a short, dark-skinned fellow with a goatee whose nametag said "Juarez." It wasn't that he didn't believe me, it was more that he just couldn't get his head around it, but he did the best he could.

"I'm not sure of the best course, Miss Valentine. I know that's not what you want to hear from a doctor, but this is a rather novel situation. I'm going to suggest a full workup, including a full-body CAT scan."

Some with my experience try to tough it out, but I tend to follow my doctor's advice, and I agreed to it. I was given a gown, and some privacy to strip out of the bodysuit. I felt like a snake shedding its skin; relieved, rejuvenated, but at the same time vulnerable and unprotected. I'd worn nothing else for so long I wondered how long it would take me to adapt to actual clothing.

When the nurse returned, I handed her the bodysuit. "You'll want to make sure this gets to the BSAA. It's evidence." She took it, nodded and left.

They had me laying in a bed in the hallway, typical of places so overburdened and understaffed. I didn't mind the hustle and bustle around me. The quiet of waiting alone in an examining room would probably have been worse.

As I waited patiently for the doctor to return with my results, Chris, Sheva and Josh returned from their own, much shorter exams. I couldn't repress the widest grin I'm capable of, which was returned to me by each of them.

Chris, ever the protective partner, asked: "How you holding up?" I noticed he was holding a paper shopping bag, but filed it away for later curiosity.

"I feel fine," I answered. "I'm sure this is all just the doctors being overly cautious."

Josh was the next to speak. "I have to see about something, and then Sheva and I must leave to be debriefed. I just wanted to stop by and check in on you."

"Thanks, Josh, for everything," I said, holding out my hand for a warm handshake.

"I'm just glad I was able to help. I cannot imagine what you had to go through, but it is a blessing that you survived. You take care of yourself, Jill Valentine." With that, he turned to Sheva. "I will have a car waiting out front when you are ready, little sister." She nodded, and he left.

Sheva stepped forward, a tender smile on her face. I hardly knew her, but there was so much I wanted to say, and I could see that she felt the same.

She took my hand in hers. "You know, Jill, we couldn't have taken Wesker down without your help. We didn't even know the extent of what he was planning. I don't know if it helps, after all you've been through, but if you hadn't been there, watching his every move, things could have turned out very differently."

All my words vanished for a moment. Finally, I was able to reply: "I'm just glad Chris had such a good partner for all this."

She threw Chris an affectionate glance. "Chris is amazing. If he didn't already have a partner, I might request a transfer." I smiled. I wasn't jealous, but it was still a sweet thing for her to say.

Finally, she stood up straight and said "You just get some rest." I nodded. She turned to Chris, he to her. There was much for them to say as well, but instead, they just saluted each other. And with that, she left. And, at last, it was just Chris and me. He looked around and grabbed a nearby stool to wait with me for the doctors.

"Oh, I almost forgot," he said, grabbing the bag. He reached inside and withdrew the contents. Clothing, probably from the RX. Camo pants and shirt, combat boots, typical army issue undies and socks. I had to laugh.

"It's all we could get. Sheva helped me guess your size. It'll have to do until we can hit the mall."

"It's fine. Thanks."

There was a television mounted in a corner facing a nearby waiting area. Its flickering images hadn't managed to distract me until now; my eye was drawn by a familiar face. It was Obasanjo.

"Chris! Turn that up!" I said, pointing. He obliged.

"…after the UN-sanctioned raid on his camp. Most of General Obasanjo's troops have been detained, but the General's whereabouts are unknown as of this time. An international warrant has been issued for Obasanjo's arrest; if captured, he will be tried at the Hague for war crimes and crimes against humanity."

Chris had been watching the report with me, but he turned to see the stunned look on my face.

"Jill! What's wrong?"

"That man, General Obasanjo. Do you know anything about him?"

"That's right, you haven't been exposed to much by way of the news, have you? For the past year or so, he's been building up an army, flouting UN decrees and sanctions. He's been implicated in a lot of nasty stuff, mass murders, torture, chemical attacks. It looked like he was trying to take control of several regions, including Kijuju. I'd heard that the UN and NATO were preparing to try to take him out; I guess it went down while we were dealing with Uroboros. Why?"

"He was dealing with Wesker," I said. "The Las Plagas men you faced in the Tricell facility, those were Obasanjo's men. Obasanjo traded them for his own supply of Las Plagas."

Chris was starting to catch onto my apprehension. "But from that report, it looks like he hadn't used it on his own men."

"That's still not good, Chris. An international war criminal has vanished with a supply of Las Plagas large enough to create an army – and with Las Plagas, he doesn't have to recruit and train them. He can build up that army anywhere."

Chris nodded, understanding the full implications of this awful new development. "We'll make sure BSAA has all the facts when we go in for debriefing. It's all we can do for now."

He was right.

"Anyway, Jill, since there's nothing we can do about it, let's just forget about Las Plagas and Uroboros. Just for a few minutes."

I nodded. It sounded good to me.

Neither of us felt much like chatter, anyway. We sat silently, just gazing at each other. It had been so long since we'd been together and we'd been through so much, but it was as though no time had passed between us - our comfort was absolute. I felt more complete with Chris than without, and I didn't need to hear him say that he felt the same. Certainty about yourself is rare enough; certainty about someone else is something you could spend a lifetime searching for and never find.

Partners. It's complicated.

Suddenly, Chris seemed to notice something. He surprised me by reaching up and yanking a hair from my forehead.

"Ouch! Hey!" I yelped, smiling, confused and curious. "What's that all about?"

He ignored me and held the hair up to his face, pulling a desk lamp over to get a better look.

"Come on, what's going on?" I asked.

He just smiled and held the hair up to my face. "Jill, look!"

"Yeah, it's a hair. So?"

"Look closer! Look at the root!"

I smirked and took the hair from him, holding it up to my own face and trying to see what he saw.

It was one of my newly blonde hairs. But it didn't take me long to see what he had seen, right there at the root. It was just a few millimeters.

Of brown. My brown.

Chris saw the awareness come over me. "Looks like you're going back to brunette after all."

"Yeah. Yeah! Hey, if the pigment is coming back to my hair, maybe my skin..."

"You're thinking maybe you won't have to wear SPF 100 at the beach after all?"

I couldn't help but laugh with him. I mean, I know it's such a superficial thing to care about your hair color. But it felt damn good. I don't know, maybe it was just taking something else back from Wesker. Or maybe I just realized that one day soon, I'd be able to look in a mirror and see myself again.

Soon, Dr. Juarez returned with his neat little clipboard. I indicated with a gesture that Chris was staying, and the good doctor went over their findings and results. Perfect health. No abnormalities detected. Organ function completely normal. It also appeared that the traces of P30 left behind when the Jewel was ripped out of me had been one last gift: despite the nightmarish tangle of implantation, I was completely healed up. A hint of a fading scar on my chest was the only outward indication of my ordeal. I could be discharged immediately.

But Chris looked worried. "What is it, Chris? This is good news."

"They're waiting to debrief us at HQ."

"Fine," I said, "Let's do it now. Let's get it over with."

"Are you sure, Jill? You could take the day and go in tomorrow."

"Chris, the BSAA needs to know what happened here. The truth has to come out, and we can't wait." I was starting to figure out why he was worried, though.

"Jill... Look, I know you. I know who you are, what you stand for. I know you would die before you would harm one innocent person, and I know that if you'd even had the option to die, you would have taken it. Not to mention that I was there. I saw that device, I saw Wesker exert his control over you. But for some others, it may be a lot to take in. They're going to have a rough time wrapping their heads around Uroboros as it is."

Poor Chris. "I know all that. But one day isn't gonna change the fact that I have a duty to perform here. Chris, we just have to have some faith that this will all work out."

He gave me a half-smile, the best he could muster under the circumstances. "Fine. I know better than to argue with you once your mind is set. HQ is ready for you anytime. We just have some final paperwork to take care of here, then I'll drive you over myself."

"Thanks, Chris." I knew he was tired, but there was no way I was going to protest. I needed him right now. I had no trouble being a little selfish. In any case it didn't matter because he was clearly going with me no matter what.

Soon, a nurse showed up with the obligatory discharge wheelchair, and I happily climbed in, glad to be free of this place. It was a good hospital staffed by good people, but I was done with doctors and needles and tests for a while. Hopefully a good long while.


	23. XXII: Debriefing

The West African hedquarters of BSAA headquarters was located in a grimy, isolated desert bunker about 100 miles northeast of Kijuju. The idea was that, as one of the world's most likely and attractive targets for bio-terror, any such attack could more easily be contained and controlled by the fact of sheer desolation. Pretty smart. If Wesker had been developing Uroboros under New York city, the whole affair might have gone very differently.

Chris and I drove in silence. I knew there was so much we wanted to say, to ask. I wanted him to be able to get it all out there, but I wasn't ready, and he could tell. I just wanted to lean back, close my eyes and listen to the purr of the engine. Chris knew that silence was best, so he kept his peace. Partners develop those kinds of instincts toward each other.

We arrived at BSAA headquarters around 4 PM, and they wasted no time setting up for me. Investigators were ready to talk to me almost straight away, a mix of local and North American operatives and leadership. Pyke was going to run the investigation himself.

"How long do you guys think this is going to take?" Chris asked, a bit of confrontational edge in his voice.

"Agent Redfield," said Pyke. "I know that you've both been through an unimaginable ordeal, but what you should know is that there are a lot of eyes on this investigation. There's a lot at stake here. We have to take our time and do everything just right."

I cut Chris off before he could protest. "We understand, Captain Pyke. You have my full cooperation."

"For which we are very grateful, Agent Valentine." I could tell that Pyke was a straight shooter. He wasn't going to cut me any breaks but he wasn't out to get me, which is all I could ask for, and what I'd like to think I'd be doing in his place.

Chris resigned himself to a lengthy debrief. "Is there somewhere I can wait?"

"Chris," I said, "you don't have to stay. Go! Get some sleep!"

"Forget it. No way I'm leaving."

Pyke gestured up the hall. "There's a break room, second door on the left. Terrible coffee, stale junk food, sticky old couch. You know the drill. You're welcome to wait as long as you like."

"Thanks, Captain Pyke."

I flashed a reassuring smile. "I'll see you soon, partner." Chris smiled back, but I could tell his worries hadn't gone anywhere.

I was led to a small, empty, brightly lit room by Pyke, who was joined by two investigators. I honestly wasn't surprised to find out that it was less a debriefing and more an interrogation. I had been involved in terrible things. I had been at the heart of Uroboros. Hell, I had personally spread Uroboros to hundreds. Pyke's team wasn't out to get me, though; they weren't trying to trick me or catch me in lies and inconsistencies. I could at least keep some confidence that the powers that be would get the raw feed and not a doctored account by someone with an agenda, someone whose mind was made up.

But I kept my cool. I told the entire story. I didn't leave out any detail. The men expressed surprise at the detail of my recall; I explained that this was a side effect of the P30. I answered every question without anger, annoyance or defensiveness. I gave them everything they asked for.

The interview went on all night. I was fine; I'd learned to go for days without sleep when I needed to. I sensed that Pyke had similar training, but his two companions seemed a bit fried. They were more the civilian type and had probably been working the case for days. But they managed to get through it, and finally, around 9 AM, Pyke called the debriefing to a close.

"I think that's everything we need," he said, and his two friends silently left the room.

"So what now?" I asked.

"Well, it's going to take some time to piece together your story with the evidence we've been gathering in our African investigation and from the Tricell facility. For today, though, I'm just going to give my superiors the high-level stuff. I know it's been a while since you got any rest, and I know it's asking a lot, but..."

I got it. "I'll wait here as long as you need me to. I want this done right as much as you do."

His eyes smiled at me again. "I appreciate your cooperation under what I know are extremely difficult circumstances." I was pretty sure at that moment that he believed every word I'd said, but I also knew my fate wasn't up to him.

"Okay, I'll try to get this process moving. Your partner's curled up in a hard metal chair trying to sleep; I'll have him come in here and wait with you if you want."

"I'd like that, thank you, Captain Pyke."

"All right, then." He opened the door to leave, but paused and turned. "I'm sorry for everything you had to go through, Agent Valentine."

I don't know why exactly I felt my heart harden up at that moment. I knew Pyke believed me, and I could tell he'd seen some nasty stuff in the field himself. Maybe he didn't fully understand my particular nightmare, but he'd had enough of his own to speak the language. Still, I felt myself shut down from him a little. Maybe the wounds were too fresh and hurt more than I'd realized.

"Thank you, Captain Pyke," I said, feeling it come out colder than I would have liked. If Pyke detected anything, he didn't let on. His eyes smiled one last time, and he left.

A minute later Chris entered the room carrying two Styrofoam cups of what I could tell would be bitter, day-old coffee. Setting them down he sat, rubbing his face and smoothing down his uncooperative hair.

"Thanks," I said, taking one of the cups and bracing myself for its foul flavors.

"How'd it go?" Chris asked in a husky and exhausted voice.

"I gave them everything they asked for. We'll just have to see where it goes from here."

Chris nodded and sipped his own coffee. He grimaced like someone had hit him in the face with pepper spray. "Oh shit, that's bad. I mean, really bad."

I laughed. "I can deal with bad coffee for a while."

Chris looked at me. His face was a tangle of emotions; I knew he was happy to see me, but there was sadness, worry and fear mixed in there as well.

"Jill," he finally said. "I'd understand if you don't want to talk about it, but… "

"You mean being under Wesker's control."

He nodded.

I struggled to find the words for what I wanted to say. "I… I don't mind talking about it. And I want you to know everything, I do. I just don't know how to explain it. It's been a long time since I just… talked, just talked with someone, you know?"

"It's okay, Jill. I just… I mean, how did you manage to keep yourself intact through all of that?"

I smiled a sad smile. "I still don't know if I really did."

"I know it's going to take you some time to work through it all. But most people in your position… it probably would have driven them to insanity. They'd come out the other end broken."

I thought about it for a bit. "I guess I just had something to live for."

"What?"

I wasn't sure of the answer. What had I been living for all that time? For duty? To insure Wesker's downfall? For the hope that I might see Chris again, sit with him like this drinking bad coffee and talk about things no one else could understand?

"I'll let you know when I figure that one out," I finally replied.

Chris chuckled. "Fair enough." We lapsed into silence for a bit, and then he spoke again.

"I never thought I'd get to thank you for saving my life."

And there it was. The burden. The cross that Chris had borne for all this time. And now, in a way, it was worse, because he knew that I'd been out there alive, and he could have been searching for me, trying to rescue me.

I grabbed his hand and squeezed it. "Yeah, well, I think you've put us even, Redfield."

Captain Pyke broke the silence that followed as he returned to the interview room, trailed by two armed agents that had not been on the debriefing team. Pyke seemed too somber, too serious, and Chris immediately sensed that something was up. We looked each other in the eye, both knowing pretty much what was about to happen.

"Agent Valentine, please stand up."

Chris began to protest. "Pyke, what do you think you're –"

I knew when his blood was up. He needed to calm down. "Chris, please!" I cut him off as I stood.

"Place your hands behind your back."

Now Chris was standing, and the tension began to escalate. "No! No, you can't do this!"

Pyke tried to keep the situation under control. "Please, Agent Redfield, let us do our job."

"It's okay, Chris," I said as I was cuffed. I turned to Pyke, who spoke to me in a voice that betrayed a certain amount of frustration. This was not a duty that pleased him.

"Jill Valentine, by the powers vested in me under UN Security Council Resolution BOW578-A, I am placing you under arrest for suspicion of commiting acts of terrorism and of aiding and abetting known terrorists. A tribunal will be convened to examine the charges against you; you will be provided counsel and given an opportunity to examine all evidence and defend yourself before the tribunal. Do you understand what I have told you."

"Yes," I said calmly. None of this surprised me. Even if top BSAA brass believed every word of my story, to simply debrief me and let me go would have smacked of a cover-up of horrible crimes. The entire story would have to be aired out; full investigations would be done; evidence would be gathered and carefully analyzed. I had no problem with any of this. I needed this to be done right. Anyway, I really didn't have anywhere important to be.

Chris wasn't on board with this, however, and started to show some real anger. "I can't let this happen! Do you know what Jill has been through?"

Chris was making the agents were getting nervous. I saw a couple of hands hovering near sidearms. I knew that if the situation were reversed, I'd probably be acting just the way Chris was acting, but for better or for worse, I'm not a six-foot, 260 pound wall of muscle.

Pyke appealed to him sternly. "Agent Redfield, I don't like this any more than you do, but there is a process that has to be followed. You have my word that I will do everything in my power to insure that Agent Valentine gets a fair hearing and that all investigations are thorough, detailed and by the book."

Chris was momentarily silent but no more calm. He was conflicted.

I understood. Chris is a by-the-book guy and normally this protest would have been more of a show of support for me than a real confrontation. But Chris was carrying something with him now that he hadn't had before. He felt he hadn't done enough. He had accepted my death. He had mourned me and moved on. And now he knew that all that time, I was in hell, and he could have been searching for me. I didn't blame him in the slightest for anything, all I felt for him was gratitude and affection, but I'd carried enough of my own burdens to know this didn't help him.

I stepped between Chris and Pyke, looking Chris straight in the eye.

"This isn't helping me. Believe me, Chris, there is no cage they can put me in that's worse than the one Wesker created for me. The one _you_ freed me from."

I saw some of the tension leave him. I was getting through to him; I had just thanked him with all of my soul. It didn't release his burden, but I hoped it would help to lighten the load. I pressed on, lowering my voice to reduce the tension even further.

"I'll be fine. Whatever happens, we have to trust the system. We'll get through this."

"Jill, this isn't fair! Not after all that you've done! All that you've been through!"

"Chris, we don't choose the path that is placed in front of us. This is our path. _'The way out is always through'_"

He put a hand up to cup my cheek. I pushed my face into his hand and smiled weakly but sincerely.

"Now let these men do their job, and stop being a big baby, would you?" I managed to get a smile out of him. Good.

With that, the agents began to lead me out of the interview room. Pyke continued to lay out the situation I was in as we all walked together, Chris tagging along behind.

"You will be taken to a secure detention facility in the United States while the tribunal is convened and the investigations are conducted. Your counsel will be able to visit you there. Your counsel will have full access to all the evidence we gather. Do you understand what I have told you?"

"Yes, Agent Pyke," I replied.

"Jill, I won't give up on you, whatever happens," said Chris. We were approaching the elevator.

"I know, Chris."

"The truth will come out! They will see you for the hero that you are! I'll make sure of it!"

Now we were in the elevator. One of the agents held up a hand to indicate that this was as far as Chris could go.

The doors started to close. "It's gonna be fine, Chris," I said. I didn't know if it was going to be fine, but it was never going to be as bad as it was. I could live with any outcome. I just hoped I could get Chris to feel the same.

Chris started to say something: "Jill, I –" But the doors closed and cut him off.

I was left with this feeling in the pit of my stomach that he was about to run off and go do something really stupid and dangerous.


	24. XXIII: Detention

I was processed, jumpsuited and taken to an uncomfortable military plane for a fourteen hour flight in shackles. The BSAA guards seemed to be more upset about the way I was being treated than I did. They wanted to talk, probably to let me know they thought I was getting a raw deal, but I just wanted to sleep, to close my eyes and send the world away for a while. If these guards thought what I was going through was undignified and humiliating, they had no idea what indignity and humiliation really were. Eventually their chatter turned to mumbles among themselves.

I was taken to a detention facility at Edgewater, a Nevada army base. It was a special administrative unit, which is reserved for current or former agents and officials of the government. This meant the facilities were a bit better and the guards a bit nicer than the rank and file let. The women's wing was designed to hold up to a hundred detainees, but at the time there were only four of us. I didn't think I'd mind the solitude.

It wasn't the Ritz, as they say, but compared to what I'd been through, life at Edgewater was heaven. The beds weren't made of concrete and the food was north of edible, but to me they were luxurious. I have no idea what the other detainees were there for, as we were under a general order of silence about our respective cases, but they all seemed decent to me and treated me with respect. The guards, too. I made it my mission to be a model prisoner and cause no trouble whatsoever.

Overall, the facilities were adequate, if dated – not a lot of money spent on capital improvements. It seemed that I arrived just in time, however; shortly after I started my stay, there was a flurry of new activity. New, state-of-the-art exercise equipment. A total remodel of the medical facilities, to be inhabited by some very talented doctors. They even added psychological counseling to the menu. The other inmates joked that I was apparently good luck. It had been a long time since anyone thought of me as someone who brings anything other than death and suffering, so I savored the notion.

I was able to meet with my counsel daily, Navy JAG defense attorney Caroline Strait. She seemed smart and capable; she'd been given full BSAA clearance and had been briefed on the entire history of Umbrella, its legacy of biological terror, the nightmarish experiments that destroyed countless lives, and my career-long dedication to the fight against it all. She had no trouble believing my story, which I hoped was a good sign.

As it turned out, however, a great deal of evidence was destroyed in the aftermath of Uroboros. The hellspawn creatures that were unleashed to stop Chris and Sheva had caused untold damage to computers, data, and biological specimens. Plus, many of the human researchers and technicians had destroyed or made off with evidence of their own crimes before escaping or dying in the chaous. Forensics teams were working around the clock to figure out just what had gone on there for so many years, but it was a tough puzzle missing many pieces.

I didn't know how this would play out; I resolved, however, to not let myself get mired in worry and doubt.

I was permitted one personal visitor for one hour once a week. I really didn't have anybody but Chris, so I was surprised and disappointed when, six days into my stay at Edgewater, visiting day came and I never got the call that someone had arrived for me. I already missed him, but I knew there was no way he'd abandon me unless he had a damn good reason. I still felt the sting,

though, week after week, hoping for that intercom announcement that never came.

As the tribunal drew closer, Lt. Strait started to get worried too. Chris's testimony would be a major part of my defense, and if he were to miss the tribunal it could be a huge blow to my case.

But he wouldn't do that. I knew there was no way he would do that to me.

And that was what worried me. The only way he wouldn't be there for me is if he couldn't be there for me… and that would mean he was hurt, captured or dead.

But no. I couldn't think like that. Those thoughts were no good. So I focused on my case, on training, and on working with the doctors and counselors. Like I said, I think of myself as a cooperative patient; I did everything they told me, took every test they wanted me to. The counselors seemed especially eager to help and curious about my experience, so I didn't hold anything back.

Well, I did hold one thing back. _Damn it, Redfield… where are you?_


	25. XXIV: Tribunal

Finally, the day came: the Tribunal was to begin.

I was taken to the austere courtroom at 8:30 in the morning, where I was met by Lt. Strait. The Tribunal was to be adjudicated by three high-ranking military judges; the chief justice of the case was called the President. There was no jury; the case would be argued to the three justices, whose unanimous decision would determine my fate.

After some hushed pre-trial conversation, the bailiff silenced the courtroom by asking us: "Please rise for the President and the associate justices."

We rose, and the three stern-looking officers filed in, taking their seats. The one in the center, the President, banged his gavel and began to speak.

"This Tribunal is now in session.

"Before the defendant in this case, Jill Valentine, is called upon to make her pleas to the indictments which have been lodged against her, it is the wish of the governing bodies that I make a very brief statement on behalf of the Tribunal.

"This International Security Tribunal has been established pursuant to United Nations Security Council Resolution BOW578-A, dated the 8th of September, 2003, and the Charter of the Tribunal annexed thereto. The purpose for which the Tribunal has been established is stated in Article 1 of the Charter to be the just and prompt trial and punishment of international terrorists making use of bio-organic weapons in the execution of their crimes.

"The signatories to the Agreement and Charter are the fifteen nations that comprise the United Nations Security Council.

"The defendant is represented by counsel. The defendant has had the opportunity to vet and approve her counsel, and has waved her right to select different counsel for the duration of this Tribunal proceeding.

"The Tribunal has heard, and is satisfied by, the steps which have been taken by the prosecution to make available to defending counsel the collection of documents, data and evidence upon which the prosecution's case is reliant, with the aim of giving to the defendant every possibility for a just defense.

"Although the governing bodies of this Tribunal are committed to serving the public interest and to transparency to the extent that safety and security concerns permit, due to the sensitive nature of the events that have lead to the convening of this Tribunal, we are compelled to conduct this trial in a secure and private manner. I must, therefore, remind all those in attendance, including witnesses for both the defense and prosecution, that the Tribunal will insist upon the complete maintenance of order, decorum and secrecy, and will take the strictest measures to enforce it. And now, in accordance with the provisions of the Charter, the indictment shall now be read."

The President gestured to the prosecution's table, yielding the floor to the lead prosecutor, Franz Leiter. Leiter approached the microphone stand between our two tables and spoke.

"As the duly appointed representative of the United Nations Security Counsel in the investigation of the charges against the defendant Jill Valentine, pursuant to United Nations Security Council Resolution BOW578-A, dated the 8th of September, 2003, and the Charter of the Tribunal annexed thereto, I hereby accuse Jill Valentine as guilty, in the respects I shall set forth, of crimes of terror, crimes against humanity and crimes against peace.

"I shall now read the statement of the offense.

"It is our contention that the defendant, in collusion with other individuals to be named as co-conspirators during the course of these proceedings, did participate in the formulation and execution of crimes of terror, crimes against humanity and crimes against peace, and the defendant, in violation of international law, did use bio-organic weapons on civilians and soldiers, in furtherance of a conspiracy whose intent was nothing less than the eradication of the human race as we know it from the face of the earth. Furthermore, the defendant does not deny that these actions took place, and at her own hand."

The prosecutor continued to read the indictment, which chronicled the incidents in which I had been involved: the murder of Father Kendrick, the infection of Obasanjo's men, the genocide at Kijuju, the deliberate infection of individuals with the intention of turning them into bio-organic weapons capable of large-scale destruction. All of it was the truth.

Finally, he concluded his statement and sat. The President spoke again.

"I now call upon the defendant to plead guity or not guilty to the charges that have been brought against her."

Lt. Strait nodded at me. I stood and spoke into the microphone placed before the Tribunal.

"Not guilty."

Even though I knew in my soul that I was not guilty of choosing to commit any of the crimes that the indictment described, some part of me felt strange and dirty for pleading that way. I was there, I watched my body do those things, I was unable to stop my hands from acting out according to Wesker's will. Even if, technically I was not morally at fault, perhaps someone should pay the price, and perhaps I was just the unfortunate person called upon to do so. I guess I was confronting issues of guilt, of action, of agency and choice and free will that no one had ever had to face; it'll throw you for a loop.

In any case, I said those words and sat. Too late now.

The President spoke next. "The defendant's plea is entered as not guilty on all charges. The prosecution may now make its opening statement."

Leiter rose, approached the microphone, and began. "May it please Your Honor, to represent the people of the world in the prosecution of crimes of terror imposes a grave responsibility. The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant and so devastating, that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored, because it cannot survive their being repeated. That we stand here today, conducting this proceeding in a manner designed to show the utmost respect for the judgment of the law, is a testament to the commitment of all parties affected by these terrible events to justice, to peace and to the advancement of civilization.

"What this defendant has done, we shall patiently and thoroughly disclose. We will demonstrate undeniable proof of events that challenge credulity, and we will meticulously show the ties that bind the defendant inseparably to the cause of these events.

"Before I discuss the specifics of the evidence, some general considerations which may affect the credibility of this trial in the eyes of the world should be faced. The acts of terror that have brought us together today are the result of scientific advancements and discoveries that are far beyond the pale of the mainstream. They are not well understood, nor widely studied, but are the inventions of a small consortium of very secretive individuals and agencies bent on the pursuit of power and destruction. As a result of this, the full investigation and study of these inventions will likely take years, perhaps decades, before thorough and solid conclusions can be made. Justice, however, and the rights I concede are fully possessed by the defendant, both dictate that this trial be conducted and concluded in a timely fashion. Therefore, I beg the indulgence of the tribunal in regard to the testimony brought forth by experts in the field of forensics and bio-engineering. Much of what will be heard can only be regarded as theoretical and preliminary, and yet it is inescapable that these tentative findings must form the foundation for the conclusions the Tribunal must reach. On this matter, I can only say that all concerned parties have no choice but to leave the final judgments to the wisdom of the apportioned adjudicators, who in the end will consider many other factors regarding the guilt or innocence of the defendant. On behalf of the public, I pledge the confidence and support of the prosecution in this Tribunal, and in whatever determinations are reached by the Tribunal based on the best evidence and most plausible findings the prosecution and defense will be able to present."

In other words: it's all fringe science, we don't expect military judges to believe or understand it all, and in the end, the truth will have to rest as much on my credibility as on the viability of a serum like P30. It was an honorable thing for the prosecution to say, but the implausibility of true mind control in the perception of the judges was still my biggest worry, no matter how I came off on the stand.

All in all, the start of the tribunal was harder than I had thought it would be. I felt like I was on trial at Nuremberg. Everything was so formal, so careful, so thorough – and I was the center, the cause of all this effort. So much work, so much time being devoted by so many important people – I almost wanted to plead guilty and get it over with just to release these people to more important tasks.

But something had begun that had to be seen through, and not just for me or for those involved in my trial.


	26. XXV: Trial

The tribunal progressed slowly, day after day. The blow-by-blow would not make for particularly interesting reading, so I will simply boil it down as best I can.

Strangely, there was one part of the daily affair of attending the tribunal that I found solace in: getting dressed for it in the morning. I was provided the full BSAA women's dress uniform: crisp, cinched black jacket with the BSAA emblem on the left chest and upper left arm; matching knee-length skirt; light blue blouse; black tie and navy blue beret. Getting ready became something of a ritual for me to get lost in, a slow and careful process whose result was the most perfect version of myself that I could generate. Wearing that crisp, well-fitted uniform just made me feel more human, I guess.

As the tribunal proceeded, the prosecution laid out the events as they were understood in regard to Albert Wesker and his Uroboros plan. There were many holes in their story, as so much evidence had been destroyed at Tricell. The schematics and design of the Jewel were well-documented, its purpose indisputable; the blood-encrusted remains had actually been retrieved from the floor of the temple. Most worrisome, though, was that no samples of the P30 compound were discovered in the Tricell facility or in the course of the investigation. Furthermore, whatever the Jewel had been injecting into me had broken down completely, leaving no residue but harmless chemical leftovers.

Once the prosecution had completed its case, my defense could begin. Lt. Strait laid out my entire history and career, the stellar fitness reports, all the things I had done in the name of eliminating bio-terror from the world. She attacked the prosecution by pointing out that I had no motive to help Wesker of my free will, and that once the Jewel had been removed, I did everything in my power to help Chris and Sheva defeat Wesker. Sheva was even brought in to testify on my behalf, which she did with passion and eloquence; the prosecution's cross-examination did not rattle her in the slightest, and she gave them nothing in regard to furthering evidence of my guilt.

I attended and participated in these proceedings with all due diligence, but inside my heart was heavy, for there was still no sign of Chris. Soon he would be called to testify. If he wasn't present for it, he would be found in contempt of the proceeding and find himself in rather deep trouble.

The day after Sheva's testimony was visiting day; it was the first time during my incarceration that I had an actual visitor. They don't say when they call you to the visiting lounge who your visitor is, but in my heart I knew it was Sheva - and not Chris.

Still, I was overjoyed to see her, to see anybody. As tolerable as detainment was, given what I'd been through and my training, I guess I hadn't realized how lonely it could be. There was no question when I approached her table that I would do anything but give her the biggest hug of her life, which she answered with the biggest smile I'd seen her give. We sat.

"How are you holding up?" she asked, her look so tender. I marveled at and envied her ability to be so competent in the field and so warm and giving off the field. It was something I'd always struggled with. Some part of me thought you had to choose one or the other, and I'd always chosen duty.

"I'm fine," I replied. "I've had far worse than this. I was once alone in a South American jungle for a week with nothing but a knife and a book of matches. _That_ was hard time."

She laughed. "I'm told there don't appear to be any lingering after-effects from your ordeal."

"Healthy as I've ever been," I answered. "In fact, you know what's strange? I was born in 1974, so on paper I'm 35 years old. But I was in cryogenic sleep for two of those years, with my metabolism brought to a stop, and for the last year, apparently the P30 chemical was able to stop senescence."

Sheva wrinkled her eyebrows in confusion. I smiled.

"Yeah, I didn't know what it means either. It means 'aging at the cellular level.'"

She got my point. "So, you were born 35 years ago, but physically you're 32?"

"Bingo."

"Wow, that'll mess with your mind."

"Yeah. In a sense, it's like I have those three years back that Wesker took from me - since I'll die three years later." I said with a crooked smile.

"Well, that's an odd way to look at it," Sheva replied.

"Listen," I said, shifting away from the strange small talk we were engaged in, "I want to thank you."

"For what?" she asked.

"Well, besides taking such good care of Chris, saving me from hell and helping stop Wesker, I owe you thanks for what you said about me in your testimony."

"You don't have to thank me for that. Every word of it was the truth."

"I know, but I'm thanking you anyway," I said. "So... I have to ask you..."

Her look turned to a sad worry I shared. "About Chris."

"Yes."

She shook her head. "I haven't heard from him. I don't know where he is."

I figured as much. I looked down quietly.

Sheva spoke up to reassure me. "But I'm sure wherever he went, whatever he's doing, he's doing it for you. I just know it. He wouldn't abandon you, not now."

"I know that," I said, not looking up. "That's what worries me."

She put her hand to her mouth, realizing what I meant. "Jill, you can't think like that! He can handle himself. He may take some risks but he's got a good head on his shoulders. If he hasn't come back and hasn't contacted anyone, it's got to be because of the mission. You know that, right?"

I nodded. I wanted to believe it. I forced myself to smile, knowing Sheva would be able to tell it wasn't full of conviction.

She looked at her watch. "Oh Jill, I'm sorry. I wish I could stay longer, but I have to catch a flight to Johannesberg."

"Duty never sleeps," I said, standing up to give her another hug. It was more than a formal friend hug. We held each other for several seconds because that was what felt right.

Finally, she pulled back. "This is all going to work out, Jill, trust me."

I nodded. "You have a safe flight, Sheva."

"I'll see you soon, Jill, I promise," she said, and with one last comforting smile, she turned to leave.

I decided right then that no matter what my fears, I owed it to Sheva to believe her that Chris was fine and it would all work out. She'd asked me to trust her, so I would do just that.

The Tribunal proceeded at its bureaucratic pace. The day of Chris' testimony approached, and there was still no sign of him. Finally, on the evening before he was on the docket to appear, Strait and I had a meeting at the detention center. She looked worried.

"Jill," she said, "I wish I could say I thought the proceedings were going well for us."

"But you don't think they are."

"I think that the judges want to believe you, but they need two things. They need your partner, and they need a smoking gun. Even if there's no time to analyze and study the P30 compound, direct evidence of its existence might be enough to give the judges some ground to stand on. They can't afford to be seen as being too lenient; it's unfair to say that the standard of proof is higher based on the accusations, but that's a political reality that we all have to face."

So if Chris didn't show up by tomorrow, I was probably screwed. And even if he did, I was still probably screwed.

"I understand, Lt. Strait."

"If the worst happens, there will be an appeals process, and the good news about that is that due to the nature of the case, it won't be drawn out over years."

I nodded.

"Okay, just get some sleep, Jill. I'll see you in the morning."

Easier said than done. Though I'd promised myself not to worry, to have a little faith, sleep that night proved hard to come by.


	27. XXVI: Evidence

Morning came, with no word from Chris. We duly assembled in the courtroom and waited for the President to begin the day's proceedings. Strait and I looked at each other in silence. We did not expect this day to go well. By the end of it, I could be convicted for crimes against humanity, and even if Chris was alive, he could end up drummed out of the BSAA and confined to federal lockup for obstruction of justice for failing to appear.

But before the president could speak, I heard the door open behind me. I smiled. I didn't have to look to know that it was him, but I turned, and there he was.

Chris Redfield. Looking quite a mess, to boot.

From the looks of it, he'd been to hell and back, not even stopping for a shower on the way to court. Hadn't shaved or slept in days. Field clothing torn and ratty. Cuts and scrapes all over. His left pinky and ring finger in splints. Heavy bandage over the left eye. _Where on earth were you, Redfield?_

Then I noticed the dented steel attaché case he carried in one hand, and smiled even wider. He scanned the room, settled on me, smiled back and held up the case as if to show me his amazing trophy. I had a feeling about what was in it. He approached us. I wanted to throw my arms around him, but decorum and procedural rules prevented anything more than a cursory greeting. We didn't need anything more to really say how we felt.

"Lieutenant Strait," said Chris.

"Chris Redfield, I presume?" said Strait in a hushed tone, annoyed and on the verge of anger. "You're cutting it really close. Ideally we should have had at least a week to prep."

"I'm sorry about that, ma'am, but I had a good reason. I was in Egypt."

"Egypt?" asked Strait, intrigued.

"Yes, ma'am. Getting my hands on this," he said, handing her the case. She opened it. It was full of syringes.

Labeled P30.

Strait's eyes went wide. "Is this..."

"Yes, that's the chemical agent Wesker used on Jill. It wasn't all destroyed with Tricell. Some of the human researchers escaped, and they took whatever they could that they thought would be of value. It wasn't easy tracking this stuff down."

Strait's manner softened considerably. "I can't imagine it was. Thank you, Mr. Redfield. Thank you very much." She turned to me. "This means I'll have to ask for a recess to give the experts some time to study this compound. I doubt they'll be able to fully confirm that its effects are exactly as you testified, but I believe that between this and your partner's testimony, we're in very good shape."

Just then, the President declared the tribunal in session.

Strait asked for and got her one-week recess, then conferred with the prosecution and Chris on the new development and how they were to proceed. The samples would go to BSAA headquarters for testing. I wasn't able to speak to Chris before being led out to return to my cell, but a glance and a smile between us were enough to hold me over for a while.

The next visiting day, which I hoped would be my last, finally saw my wish granted. After being summoned, I went to the visiting room to see a considerably better-looking Chris waiting for me. Well-rested and clean-shaven, sporting a nasty forehead scrape instead of a bandage, but still wearing the two finger splints. I finally got my hug.

We sat. I didn't wait for him to speak first.

"You crazy son of a bitch," I said with a smile. "What did you think you were doing?"

"Hey, I was just trying to keep the investigation from stalling out. You know how the bureaucrats are."

I just shook my head at him. "You really didn't have to do this. You've done plenty for me already."

"Yeah," he said, "but I like it better when _you_ owe _me_ a favor."

I sat back. "You stayed behind in Africa and had to go all the way to Egypt for that stuff?"

"It was no big deal," he said, trying to brush it off. I gestured at his broken fingers.

"What, that? Slammed them in a car door. Totally stupid of me." He smiled - he was lying badly and he knew I knew it. I wasn't going to get the story out of him just yet, and that was fine with me - we'd save it until this was all over.

He turned serious. "Look, I'm sorry I didn't tell you what I was doing, but I knew you'd try to talk me out of it, and that was a risk I wasn't willing to take. I told you I'd get you out of this, Jill. And you know you'd do the same for me."

There was so much I wanted to say to him, so much locked away inside me, but I couldn't. We were partners. I was afraid I'd just make a mess of things.

So I just squeezed his non-broken hand in mine and mouthed the words "Thank you."

We spent the rest of the visit on jokes and small talk - reminiscences of the lighter moments between operations, or during lulls in the action. It was stuff I hadn't dared to think about when I was Wesker's slave. It was part of another life that was too painful to remember and that I thought I'd never get back. Now it was like going through an old photo album that had been lost, or a chest of old toys I'd thought my dad had given away. Every moment precious in retrospect, no matter how insignificant and fleeting it had seemed at the time. I think that visit was the fastest hour of my life, over way too quickly. But now that Chris was back, even when we were apart, me locked up in my cell and him holed up in some crappy motel room ten miles away, I didn't miss him. I didn't have to.


	28. XXVII: Verdict

"Jill Valentine, please rise."

The evidence was in. Chris had given his full testimony. The prosecution and defense had made their closing statements and rested their cases. The justices retired to deliberate. Three days later, they had reached a verdict and reconvened the tribunal. Outwardly, I was cool and collected. Inside, I just wanted to throw up. I stood as requested.

"This Tribunal has heard arguments from the prosecution and the defense, has heard accounts and been given proof of events of unimaginable horror. And you have not denied the role that your presence played in bringing these events about. Under any other circumstances, the case as presented would leave this tribunal no alternative but to find you guilty of all charges.

"But these are far from ordinary circumstances. We have heard extensive testimony in regard to your extraordinary character and commitment to justice, peace, and the protection of innocent lives, and we have not been provided any reason to doubt this testimony. What we have not heard is even a hint of a credible argument as to what possible motivation you might have to suddenly, and without warning of any kind, submit to serve your greatest enemy and advance the cause of those horrors you had theretofore devoted your life to eradicating.

"And all of this very conflicting evidence is mired in science and inventions that are terrible and far beyond the full understanding of the greatest experts in their fields, let alone the members of this tribunal.

"But we do have evidence of the substance that was injected into your bloodstream, the device that was used to inject it, and the physical scarring, however minor, that demonstrates irrefutably that this device was used upon you. Although it will take time to unlock the secrets of the P30 compound, the testimony of the investigators that its subjugation of free will is not merely plausible but likely, as evaluated in the context of the most advanced neurochemical science that has been published, is, in our estimation, fully credible.

"Therefore, Jill Valentine, it is the verdict of this tribunal that you are not guilty in regard to all of the charges that have been brought against you. It is a tragedy that you have had to endure such suffering and to witness as your body was forced to bring about such horror; we can only hope that the support of those you care about can help to ease your burden, and that in the fullness of time you find yourself able and willing again to be of service. Should this come to pass, we are unanimous in the sentiment that we will feel the safer for it.

"The defendant is free to go without condition. This trial is concluded."


	29. XXVIII: Duty

I couldn't believe it; I was free, totally free and clear. I savored the thought: I can go anywhere I want, do anything I want to do. I saluted Lt. Strait and shook her hand, thanking her for everything.

"Best of luck to you, Agent Valentine," she said, and turned to leave.

I turned to see Chris standing there waiting for me. I just threw myself into his arms for a hug, squeezing him tight.

Laughing, he said "Okay, okay," giving me that unconvincing manly protest at overt shows of affection.

Releasing him, I said: "Redfield, let's get the hell out here."

"You got it, partner. We just have to hit BSAA headquarters for a bit of paperwork. I have to sign off on the final West Africa report, and now that you're both alive and vindicated, we need to get you on the inactive roster so you can collect benefits. You up for that?"

"Sure," I said. "Let's get it taken care of."

It was about twenty miles from the courthouse to BSAA headquarters. Like the West African BSAA headquarters facility, the North American headquarters was out in the Nevada desert, miles from nowhere. I find cruising down an empty highway on a hot desert morning to be a great excuse to zone out. I pushed the seat back and enjoyed the soothing purr of the engine, grateful to have a partner that knows when to be silent.

Chris and I were snapped out of our reverie by smoke on the horizon. We knew it could be anything – car fire, burning tires – but we both got that feeling that we were about to get pulled in to something bad. We don't cut and run, though; we didn't have to discuss what we were going to do, we just cruised right along to find out what was going on.

We found the source of the fire; the road, cutting through a rocky desert hill, was blocked by a burning APC. It was army issue.

"Not good," muttered Chris, expressing what we both felt. We parked and got out, warily eyeing the burning wreck. No bodies littered the road. This smelled of a deliberate blockade.

As I kept a careful eye on the transport and the surrounding area, Chris went to the trunk of his car. God bless him for coming prepared; he came back with weapons and supplies. For himself he kept a Hydra shotgun, two flash-bang grenades and a canister of first aid spray; he handed me a small backpack, three explosive grenades, two remote explosive charges and accompanying detonator, another canister of first aid spray, and…

_Oh, Chris, you shouldn't have._ A Samurai Edge with a full clip. And no question on his part of whether I was fit or ready to handle a sidearm.

Stuffing the grenades and first aid spray into the backpack, I shrugged off my jacket, slipped the pack on and clipped the holstered gun to my belt. Flipping open the snap, I drew the gun. It felt good and cool in my hand. I'll take a Samurai Edge over any other sidearm; she fires true and straight, she'll never give you a hint of a problem, and she has a way of giving you a lucky shot right when you need one. I popped the magazine out to inspect it, slapped it back in and pulled back the slide to chamber a round. I was good to go.

Holding the gun to my side at the ready, I nodded to Chris and he nodded back. We slowly approached the wreck.

"Hello?" Chris cried out. "Is anyone here? Do you need medical attention?"

We got close enough to the transport to see the smoldering interior of the vehicle. Unoccupied.

Yeah. This was a trap.

The funny thing is, I didn't see or hear anything, but what tipped me off to the fact that we were not alone was a very familiar smell. It smelled like rotting meat and fertilizer.

It was the smell of the Las Plagas infection.

Whipping around, I saw a figure lurch from behind a rocky outcropping.

"Get down!" I cried, shoving Chris behind a boulder for cover. The interloper came into view, pointing an assault rifle right at us. I took him down with three shots and dove for cover opposite Chris, who looked at me with a nod that said, "I owe you one." _And you best know I'll collect, Redfield,_ I responded with a smile.

The smile faded, though, as I heard more grunts and groans. We both knew there was no way our friend had been alone.

And me still in my nice, clean BSAA dress uniform. Just a bit too impractical for this kind of a scenario.

"Hey Chris, I don't suppose you have an extra pair of pants on you," I joked.

"Nope. Fresh out."

Oh well. I rolled up the sleeves of my blouse, loosened my tie and undid my top button. My real problem was the knee-length skirt, which was far too restraining. I looked down at myself and sighed. There was nothing for it. I tore the slits on either side all the way up to my waist. Chris looked over, unable to restrain a smile from his face.

"I don't want to hear it, Redfield."

"I wouldn't worry about it, Valentine. The last thing on their minds is how much leg you're showing."

I resolved to get us through this alive just so I could give Chris a hard slug on the arm.

I was about as ready as I was going to be. It was showtime. Readying my sidearm, I leaned out of cover and scanned for hostiles.

I saw three men. Three soldiers.

Three U.S. soldiers.

Chris saw them too. "Christ, Jill, they're army!"

"I know!" I said. One of them made a lurching move for us; I took him down with a lucky head shot. Bullets whizzed past my cover as another opened fire. We heard the tell-tale click when his clip was spent. I provided cover fire while Chris leapt out and caught the target with a full Hydra blast to the chest.

But where was our number three?

I soon got our answer. He'd managed to flank Chris and was charging at him from behind. My clip was empty and I didn't have time to slap a new one in.

An impulse flashed into my mind. _Jill, are you insane?_ I thought to myself, but it was too late – I was making my move.

It wasn't as fast or as graceful as it might have been under P30, but it still came to me somewhat naturally. I leapt into the air, using one leg to bound off of my boulder and gain even more height. I landed kneeling on the soldier's shoulders, both of us facing forward, his head gripped between my thighs. By now Chris had turned to face his attacker, so he got a full view of what happened next. I tensed all my muscles and gave one huge, hard twist of my hips – breaking the soldier's neck and instantly killing him. As he fell, I rode him to the ground and jumped off of his back to land on my feet. I stumbled a bit more than I might have otherwise, but overall it was a clean and efficient kill that might have saved Chris's life.

Chris just stared at me, dumbstruck, as the fallen soldier sizzled into a puddle next to me.

"Jill… what the hell was that?"

I just shrugged. I'd thought anything like that would have vanished with the P30. I wondered what else I'd get to keep. "I guess I've picked up a few new moves."

Chris just shook his head, impressed and bewildered. "That's putting it mildly. Just remind me not to get on your bad side."

I smiled, ejecting the spent magazine from the Samurai, slapping in a fresh clip and holstering it. Any worries either of us might have had about my ability to handle myself in the field were now put to rest.

The rush of our victory dissipated very quickly as the implications of the encounter hit us. Chris started looking around at the aftermath of our small battle.

"Chris, these guys were army."

"I know," Chris said. He was kneeling, examining a dog tag he fished out of a puddle that had been a soldier. "What does this mean? How did Las Plagas get here? How widespread is it?"

"I don't know," I replied, grabbing one of the soldiers' assault rifles, "but I guarantee you this was a welcoming party especially for us. Which means…"

Chris finished my thought: "…we'd better get to BSAA headquarters ASAP."

I nodded, and we bolted for the car. Chris peeled out in a cloud of dust as I used his two-way radio to try and contact someone – anyone.

My first attempt was to get through to the BSAA.

"Same frequency usage?" I asked. Chris nodded. I tuned to the BSAA main frequency.

"This is Jill Valentine, inactive BSAA operative, identification number One-Niner-Three-Seven-One-Zero-XRay-Bravo, requesting response from BSAA headquarters. Repeat: This is Jill Valentine, inactive BSAA operative, identification number One-Niner-Three-Seven-One-Zero-XRay-Bravo, requesting response from BSAA headquarters."

Nothing but static. Next I tried the Edgewater army base – it was a good bet that's where those soldiers were from. Nothing there either. No frequency yielded any results but static.

"Cell phone?" I asked Chris. He fished in his shirt pocket and handed it to me. I started to dial, but I realized that there was no signal.

"Chris, I think someone knocked out the communications grid for the vicinity."

"Shit!" he said, hitting the wheel. "Could be just the two of us going against God knows what. No back-up."

"Just like old times," I answered. He looked to me, the hint of a smile creasing the side of his mouth. Whatever lay ahead, we were in it together, until the end.


	30. XXIX: Siege

We made it to HQ in under five minutes, pulling the car over behind the cover of a hill. Chris retrieved a binocular case from the trunk and tossed me three extra clips for the Samurai and a brick of C4. Carefully ascending the hill, we lay down flat; Chris trained his binoculars on the HQ compound to assess the situation.

"What do we have?" I asked anxiously.

"Looks like the compound's already been taken. I count six APCs. Mowag Pirhanas. That puts the threat force at a count of 60 troops, maybe more. Under Las Plagas, that's more than enough to secure the facility. I got ten hostiles guarding the front entrance. Definitely infected."

This was insane. How long did this force intend to hold out? 60-odd Las-Plagas-infected army soliders was a deadly threat, but not enough to withstand an assault from the forces that would be brought to bear as soon as word got out. Of course, we didn't know when or how we'd get that word out. But still, whoever was behind this assault had to know it was a suicide run.

"So what's our play?" asked Chris.

"Back door," I answered. He already knew that was our best option; he was just quizzing me, making sure I was operating at full capacity. I couldn't blame him, and I didn't resent him for it; I'd have done the same in his place. We hadn't been in the field together since the Spencer Estate; he needed to know where we stood, so there might be a few little tests along the way. If he didn't think I was up to this, he would have sent me to get help while he tried to go in alone.

The "back door" was a secret entrance and exit to the facility a quarter mile out in the desert, known only to cleared BSAA personnel (and thus not to the soldiers at Edgewater.) It was very unlikely that the invaders had discovered it, and it looked like the route was clear. I waited for Chris to give the all clear, and then we broke into a jog behind the cover of rock and dune on our way to the entrance. I would have traded my Samurai for a pair of cross-trainers right about then, but I was thankful at least I was wearing flats and not heels.

As we'd hoped, the back door was completely abandoned, unknown to the invading force, hard to detect with its desert camouflage paint scheme. Chris accessed the keypad and punched in his code; with a beep, the reinforced steel doors began to slide to the side. We flanked the door, guns ready, and nodded at each other to enter. There were only two of us, so we made a button hook entry. No hostiles. "Clear," announced Chris.

The long hallway ahead was a nerve-racking stretch of exposure; we used recessed doorways to advance, one past the other, until we got to the stairwell that led to the utility room that would be our entrance to the BSAA compound. No signs of hostiles yet as we carefully made out way up the stairs, guns at the ready. Finally, we made it to the pocket door we knew to be camouflaged from the other side, carefully and slowly sliding it open.

Again flanking the door button-hook style, we made our entry. Still no hostiles, but in the dark hum of the utility room we saw two prone figures, one being attended by someone on their knees.

We saw quickly that they were not the infected soldiers and that they were BSAA. The kneeling figure was Pyke. He was applying pressure to the chest of a bleeding BSAA guard, male. The other figure was a female BSAA captain sprawled in a pool of blood, not moving at all. Pyke looked at us with surprise and relief. I saw he was bleeding from the arm – probably a flesh wound that had hurt like hell.

Quietly, Chris and I approached, speaking in hushed whispers.

"Captain Pyke, what's the situation?" asked Chris, indicating the prone figures.

"Best over there is dead; McManus has a sucking chest wound. I put him out with some morphine and the bleeding is under control, but he's not gonna last long without medical attention. God damn surprise attack. Thought we were ready for anything, but they were fucking regular army. Almost wiped us out. I don't know who's still on-site, who survived; we barely made it in here."

Chris nodded. "We were attacked en route, Las Plagas infected soldiers from Edgewater. They knock out the communication grid?"

"Yep. The grid went down, and they pull up in APCs, saying there's been a terrorist attack and they're here to defend us."

"But they were the terrorist attack," I said with horror.

"Affirmative. Those infected bastards can't do much talking; they had an uninfected hostage relay the message at gunpoint, then they blew his brains out."

"None of this makes any sense, Captain," continued Chris. "Who's behind this and why?"

"Don't know the why, but the who is General Obasanjo."

Obasanjo. Of course. The war criminal who vanished with his Las Plagas supply.

Chris broke the tense silence. "But why here? I mean, we've always known this would be a high-probability target for terrorists, but what's in it for Obasanjo? His army is gone, and so are his hopes of conquering West Africa."

A thought came to me with a terrifying chill. "Captain, this is the base of operations for the Uroboros investigation, is that right?"

"Yeah."

"Which means all the evidence ends up here, including samples of the Tricell biohazards."

Chris was starting to put it together. "But he's got Las Plagas. What more could he want?"

"When Obasanjo made his deal with Wesker, he hinted at some other deal he wanted to make."

"Any idea for what?" asked Pyke.

Something was nagging at me. The note. Something about the note I'd seen and been forced to eat by Excella.

I scanned the room and saw a clipboard hanging on the wall with a maintenance schedule and a pen attached to it by a length of thin chain. Grabbing it off the wall, I removed the schedule, flipped it over and put it on the floor blank side up. I began to draw. I could see the note in my mind as clear as a photograph.

Pyke was bewildered. "What is she –"

Chris put his hand out for Pyke's silence so I could concentrate.

As I said before, I don't know Swahili, but it didn't matter; for all intents and purposes, I was just an inkjet printer spitting out a perfect replica of what I had seen. In a minute or so, I was done.

"What is it?" asked Chris.

"It's a note that I believe was written by Obasanjo. It was a message for Wesker regarding their deal."

"That's Swahili," Chris said. "Unless Captain Pyke can read Swahili, I don't see what it's going to tell us."

I noticed a figure that was larger than the others. It didn't look like a letter that was part of a word.

I pointed at it. "Chris, what does that look like to you?"

"It's a ring… "

Suddenly I saw exactly what it was. "No it's not. It's a snake."

Chris got it too. "Eating its own tail."

Christ. It was a depiction of a famed mythological serpent.

Slowly and with quiet horror, I said it out loud for all to understand. "The snake that eats its tail. Uroboros."

We looked at Pyke with a question we didn't need to ask. He nodded.

"There is a sample of Uroboros in the laboratory."

That was the second deal Obasanjo wanted to make – he wanted Uroboros. And now he was here to get what was probably the only sample left in the world.

Chris stood up, furious. "Goddamnit, Pyke! How could you bring it here? Uroboros is probably the most dangerous pathogen in human history! How could you not destroy it?"

Pyke protested. "It's secure, it's in a triple reinforced vault. Look, we had orders. We had failsafes in place for this."

Chris continued on his rant. "Did your protocols factor in an assault by Las Plagas infected U.S. Army?"

Pyke shook his head in defeat.

I stood up, putting a hand out to stop Chris from pacing. "All right, Chris, the situation is what it is. We'll just go out there and deal with it."

It was Pyke's turn to protest. "You can't be thinking of going out there, just the two of you. You'll get yourselves killed!"

Chris turned to him. "We don't have a choice."

Pyke hung his head. "Well, then I'm going out there with you. This facility is my responsibility."

I shook my head. "Captain, no one knows what's going on here, and you said yourself that McManus won't make it for much longer. You need to get help, and you need to get him out for medical attention."

Pyke looked down at McManus, sad and contemplative. "We don't need to worry about that anymore," he said, sitting back, releasing the pressure he'd been keeping on McManus's injuries.

I crouched down and put my fingers to McManus's neck. He was gone.

Pyke looked to Chris, then to me. He was too badly injured to fight, and someone needed to get word out. It was the only play.

We helped Pyke to his feet. "Don't get yourselves killed. I'll get to the garage as fast as I can."

"Good luck, Captain," I said.

Pyke turned to go, his sidearm in his left hand as he winced with every movement of his injured right arm. I hoped we'd see him again. He seemed like the type that's pretty hard to kill.

Chris and I looked at each other.

"My guess is that the General's going to be in the lab, trying to get at that Uroboros sample," Chris said, laying out our goal.

"Best route is gonna be through medical and past cold storage." I knew this place inside and out. I wished it was nice to be back.

"Copy that," said Chris, pumping fresh shells into the Hydra. I holstered my sidearm and unslung the assault rifle. This was about to get a lot messier.

We both took a breath. "You ready, partner?" he asked.

I was. "Let's move."

I cracked the door open a slice, scanning for hostiles. Nothing. I continued to open it slowly, not letting anyone get the drop on us. No hostiles to the south, but our route was north. Chris flipped over to the other side of the doorway.

"I got three hostiles, lightly armed," he said, then waited for my signal.

I took one last deep breath and spoke.

"Go."

We swung out into the hallway. I laid down cover fire as Chris ran for a mail cart across the hall. He pushed it as far as a recessed doorway he could slip into for cover, then kicked it across the hall for me. By now all three hostiles were shouting and firing on us. I ran as low as I could for it as he pumped a few shots at them, twisting so I could slide my back right up to the cart, skidding on my butt. Time for a flash-bang - Chris tossed the blue canister as I covered my ears. The hall lit up around us as a massive sound blast shattered office windows. I stepped out; all targets were stunned. I took two down with ease, but the third made it around the corner. I pointed to Chris, then pointed along the wall next to him. He nodded and started to creep forward, hugging the wall, while I gave the mail cart one massive kick. The cart cruised right past the corner where the remaining hostile was hidden; as it sailed by him, he opened fire on it, leaning out and exposing himself. He didn't notice Chris to his left, giving my partner the opening he needed to grab the hostile's arm, pull him forward, disarm him with a powerful twist and down him with a knee to the gut. I walked up to him, slinging my rifle and drawing my sidearm. There was no coming back from Las Plagas; I shot the poor bastard in the forehead, ending whatever suffering was left for him.

We didn't even have time to reassess the situation before we heard shouting and grunting. So much for the element of surprise.

"The stairs! Hurry!" Chris grabbed my shoulder as he ran past me.

We flung ourselves through the dual metal doors of the staircase across the hall from the puddles of soldier we'd left behind. The clattering of footsteps was getting louder. Chris slammed the doors together and leaned into them, holding them shut as our pursuers crashed into them. "Jill, do something!" I scanned the area and saw a fire axe in a metal box. I broke the glass, grabbed the axe and slammed the axe handle through the door handles. I figured it would hold them for a few minutes.

Chris let the door go and we watched it shake and throb with the effort of the shouting Las Plagas soldiers on the other side of it. "Okay," I said, not wanting to wait around for the fireworks, "let's move."

Out with the assault rifle again; I probably had half a mag left. We scrambled up two flights of stairs to medical. In a stroke of luck, we were able to see a hemispherical security mirror just above the reception desk, through the tiny shatterproof window of the stairwell door. One hostile at our three o'clock. Not a big problem.

As we got ready to move, the sound of gunfire preceded the renewed clatter of our pursuers. They'd breeched our weak little barricade.

I opened the door. Chris leaned out and downed the target with one blast. I rushed through after him, grabbing a grenade from my pack and pulling the pin.

Wait for it…

Wait for it…

Chris hated when I did this but he knew better than to mess with my timing. He just got himself into cover.

Wait for it…

Throw!

The grenade clattered down a flight of stairs as a pack of soldiers came upstairs into view, and I dove for cover. The blast made the walls shake and filled the hallways with smoke and dust. I figured I'd taken out eight, maybe ten.

I staggered to my feet, then helped Chris to his, brushing dust off him as we coughed on each other. We nodded to each other that we were okay, and again we were on the move.

The medical bay was a nightmare. Five BSAA agents in beds receiving treatment had been killed, mutilated. Why? They were no threat to anyone. The Las Plagas infection causes very sick behavior, compounding the tragedy of its victims. The only fortune for us was that the area had been so lightly guarded; we made our way through medical, doing a room-by-room sweep, but met no resistence.

On to cold storage. The path would take us across a hallway. We flanked a door and scanned each direction.

Chris pointed at the direction past me, then held up two fingers. Two hostiles. I looked past him. Great. I pointed and held up three fingers. We were flanked going into this one.

Chris had a plan. He pointed at me, then pointed at an empty bed. I vigorously shook my head, but he just pointed at me and the bed again more emphatically. I glared at him as I made for the bed, lying down, my rifle at the ready, and pulled the covers over me. I knew where he was going with this, and it seemed like a really bad idea.

I heard Chris lean out and shout, "Hey, you ugly sons of bitches, come and get me!" and fire his shotgun at nothing in particular.

Then, more quietly, he said "Oh, shit!" as he ran through the medical bay past me.

I lay still. Soon I heard the grunting and bootsteps rush past as well. Was that all five? God, I hoped so. After all of the hostiles had passed me, I heard them take positions and open fire. Wherever Chris was, he was now fully suppressed.

"Jill, now!" shouted Chris. I kicked off the sheet, sat up and emptied my magazine into their backs. All five went down. They never even saw it coming.

When it was over, Chris leaned out from behind a desk.

"That went well," he joked.

I laid my now empty and useless assault rifle aside and got up, walking to Chris to give him a good scolding as he got up from his cover position for the tongue lashing he knew was coming.

But our conversation would have to wait; a Las Plagas burst in through a side door, right between us. At least this time he was the one who was flanked.

I felt that rush of instinct hit me again as I spun clockwise to kick the gun out of his hand, then counterclockwise to aerially to kick him hard in the chest. I sent him flying right into Chris's waiting arms. Chris got him in a tight chokehold, and with a quick twist snapped his neck. The soldier spun briefly, then collapsed into a heap before melting away.

We looked at each other, both knowing it had been a brutally efficient takedown, and kinda cool to boot. That's how partners are: one second, furious at each other; the next, amazed at how well they work together.

I drew my Samurai again. The assault rifle spent, I'd have to be a better shot from here on out.

The path to cold storage was cleared. We made our way across the hallway.

Cold storage had two entrances; the one nearest us was wide open. Could be that Obasanjo and his men had been searching there for Uroboros and had already moved on, but we weren't going to take any chances. Again, we started doing a room-by-room sweep. Each section was separated by the hanging plastic strips you see in a meat locker – better than a closed door, but you can't see entirely through them.

We got to the last section and flanked the plastic-stripped portal. Something wasn't right. Light was being blocked. Everything was still, but I had the sense that something very large was on the other side of those strips. Problem was, we couldn't blind fire through the strips – we had no idea if we'd hit friendlies.

As we pondered how best to proceed, we both heard and felt a low rumble and saw the light shifting through the plastic. We could even feel it through the floor; whatever that big thing was, it was alive, and it was moving.

Maybe cold storage wasn't the best path to the lab after all.

Well, whatever it was, we were going to have to deal with it. I picked up an empty, crushed soda can on a table next to me. Chris knew what I was about to do; he didn't try to stop me, but his exasperated scowl very clearly said "Oh great. Here we go."

That was as close as I was going to get to an affirmative to proceed. With a flick of the wrist, I flung the can back through the sections we'd cleared. It sailed about twenty feet before clattering to a stop on the floor.

And then a freight train rushed past us.

At least, that's what it felt like. My sense was that it was a quadruped, about eight to ten feet at the shoulder, maybe twenty feet long. Roaring like a five-story lion. Four, maybe five tons. The force of its passage knocked both of us over as it ran to the exact spot the can had hit.

Slowly picking ourselves up, we assessed our new enemy. It had to be a Las Plagas Prime mutation. My initial estimate had been wrong; it was actually six-legged. Covered head to toe in slimy red armor plates, with flesh and veins throbbing and pulsing where the plates met the underbelly. An array of whip-like tentacles writhing from the back of its neck and shoulders. Each of the three toes on each of its six feet sporting a foot-long razor claw.

As it lost interest in the can, it turned its head to look back. Looked right at us.

Or, actually, it didn't look at all. It didn't really have a face, just concentric rings of needle-like teeth leading into a central orifice. No eyes that we could see. Maybe its primary sense was sound.

"Jill?" Chris whispered.

The toothy maw angled to face Chris.

Yeah. Definitely sound.

"Move! Move!" I shouted, rushing through the strips, Chris hot on my heels. We both dove behind large metal crates on the opposite side as the unsettling rumble and thunderous gallop followed. Chris and I tried to be still, to make no sound. The thing stopped halfway through the strips, "looking" around with its disgusting head. Slowly, I stood up, Chris gesturing for me to get back into cover. But the thing didn't seem to be aware of me. I even waved a hand, and nothing. It just stood there, confused, trying to get a bead on its pray.

I stepped out, stepped toward Chris, crouched as he was behind a crate. I studied the thing. There had to be a weakness. Fleshy underbelly?

Chris stood up and tapped my shoulder. I turned to see him pointing behind us, then turned more to see what he was pointing at.

A large canister that said NITROGEN.

I nodded. I pointed at Chris, then pointed at the ground: "You stay here." Then I pointed at myself and pointed toward the exit: "I'll run past and draw him to the canister."

The rest would be up to Chris. He'd have to shoot the canister at the exact moment: too soon and I'd be a shattered pile of red ice cubes; too late and I'd be dinner.

I looked back, looked at Chris, looked at my destination. And then I ran.

I heard it, felt it on my heels. Too fast! I felt a brushing at my back that I imagined to be those gruesome tentacles.

And then I was thrown forward by a freezing cold concussive blast, followed by a horrible scream of agony.

Picking myself up, I turned to see our quarry. Its back half was frozen solid to the ground. The front half pawed impotently at the ground, screeching in pain.

I drew another grenade from my pack and started to approach the mortally injured creature. Those tentacles started whipping at me defensively. Great. This would have to go perfectly.

I popped the pin on the grenade and held it in my left hand as I drew my sidearm with my right. Moving forward, I shot away tentacles until I got close enough to finish the thing off. With the most forceful underhand throw I could muster, I sent the grenade sailing right into that horrible mouth, turned, ran, and dove for the other side of the metal doorway that was the second entrance to cold storage. I cut it close; I could feel the blast tug at my hair as I rounded the corner.

Once it felt safe, I looked back around the corner at the smoldering ruin. No more monster. As the smoke cleared, I saw Chris staring back at me from the other side of the charred pile of gore.

"Nice shot, Redfield," I told him. He just smiled and jogged through the smoke, holding his shirt collar up to his mouth. Cold storage - clear.

This put us right next to both the stairs and an elevator that led to the laboratory. Chris looked at me.

"What are you thinking? Elevator or stairs?"

I pondered our options. "How about both?"

He smiled. We both went to our respective supply packs to set up.


	31. XXX: The General

Downstairs, the lab entry was being guarded by five hostiles. As the elevator dinged, announcing its imminence, they went on high alert. The door opened and all of them trained their guns on it, confused at its lack of passengers.

Then they were blind and deaf.

Chris and I were watching all of this from the staircase. I had just detonated one of my remote charges, placed carefully on the floor of the elevator next to Chris's remaining flash bang. Chris didn't miss a beat, bursting out from the staircase to take out four of them with two well-aimed blasts from the hydra. That left one for me. My gun holstered, I charged the solider. I bounded off a wall towards him, then extended one arm for a flying clothesline that sent him slamming into the ground. I used another wall to conserve momentum, doing a backflip and landing directly on his chest to crush the life out of him with both my knees. I fluidly bounced to my feet. He was done.

Chris just shook his head. "I'm going to have to learn a whole new playbook just to keep up with you."

I smiled. I liked busting out these moves on hostiles. It felt like I was taking something back from Wesker.

The area was secure. The entrance to the lab was right in front of us. I dumped the clip from my Samurai and slapped in a new one as Chris reloaded the Hydra. Nodding to each other, we entered, ready for anything.

The two-story lab was dark, flashing and spinning red lights creating dancing patterns on the walls. The research stations were chaos, having been searched thoroughly. No hostiles.

A familiar voice boomed through the room.

"Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine, am I right?"

The deep rumble with the African accent was coming from an observation deck above and in front of us. We looked up, training our guns on the source of the sound.

"General Obasanjo," I replied.

There he stood, assault rifle in hand. But he wasn't here to shoot, apparently, he was here to talk.

"I thought it might be too much to hope that my roadside scenario might be enough to deal with the two of you. But I am a man alone in a foreign land, and I must do the best I can with what I have."

"It's over, General," Chris snapped. "Drop your weapon and surrender. No one else has to die today."

The General laughed. "No, I disagree. I think many more people must die today.

"I must say I was rather upset and frustrated by the inconvenience you caused me in Africa. I was rather looking forward to acquiring Uroboros from Wesker."

"He never would have given it to you," I replied. "Do you know what his plan was? Do you even know what Uroboros is?"

"I know all I need to know – Uroboros is power."

It occurred to me that he probably did not know what Uroboros was. It was Wesker's top secret plan; it was surprising that the General knew of it at all. Probably heard something from Ricardo Irving's big mouth.

"Uroboros is death," I said. "I was there for its creation, I have seen all it can do."

"Ah yes, behind your bird mask, right? I wonder how it felt to be the obedient servant of a man such as Wesker. I wonder how Wesker felt to have tamed such a wild creature."

My teeth ground against each other as I felt heat rise under my collar. _Control, Jill. He's trying to get a rise out of you so don't let him have it._

He continued: "Wesker's downfall was his ambition. He wanted to change the world. All I want is to own it."

Great. Another fruitcake.

"Never gonna happen," responded Chris, raising his shotgun.

"I tire of this," said the General, putting two fingers in his mouth to let out a loud whistle.

The wall to our right exploded.

As we recovered from the instinctive flinch, we saw what had caused the explosion. It was big. Bigger than the El Gigante from Spain and the Ndesu from Kijuju. And a good deal louder; his roar pierced our ears, causing stabbing pain.

Its giant, misshapen head searched the room and settled on us as we scrambled to our feet.

"Chris!" I shouted, pointing to an open vault door as I grabbed his shoulder. We ran for it, the stomping of the Giant right on our heels. We made it in, to hear and feel a tiny earthquake that knocked us forward as the creature slammed into the doorway behind us. Too big for it. We got to our feet again and looked back.

The thing was peering in with its giant head, trying to figure out how to get at us. It tried getting down on all fours to reach in with a mammoth hand, swatting at us just out of reach. It couldn't get to us, but we weren't safe for long - if it couldn't fit through the doorway, it would just tear the doorway out of the wall entirely.

Chris and I scanned our surroundings for options.

For a moment, the intimidating presence of our giant foe seemed to fade into the background as we looked around to see just what we'd stumbled into. The biohazardous sample storage unit we were in was top level security - even as two of the Original Eleven of the BSAA, we hadn't been cleared to be here. It had always made me a little nervous, wondering what was in this place, and now I saw why. It was a horror show.

The place was a museum of Umbrella's achievements. Fluid-filled tubes contained all manner of preserved creatures. T-virus victims. Lickers. Tyrants. The entire menagerie. They appeared to be all dead, but that didn't mean the infectious, mutagenic agents within them were inactive. There was also a frightening array of canisters - it was impossible to know just what serums and pathogens were stored here, but the omnipresence of the Umbrella logo signified that it was all bad.

"My God, Jill," said Chris. "This is the deadliest armory in the world."

"And it's in the heart of BSAA headquarters. How… why?"

"Too important to destroy, I guess," said Chris bitterly. "They always think, 'What if these discoveries can be used for good?'"

Chris and I had known for many years that such thinking was the path to doom. But to find it here, nestled in the bosom of the agency we had helped build… it was tragic to both of us.

Slamming and roaring snapped us out of our shock. There was nothing here either of us would even dream of using to fight the giant outside.

Well, almost nothing.

A glint caught my eye. I don't know why or how I was drawn to it, but I had spotted a Tricell attaché case. I opened it. It was full of syringes.

This was the case Chris had brought back from Africa.

P30.

I held a syringe gingerly between two fingers, examining it thoughtfully as Chris discovered what I was doing. He grabbed me firmly by one arm.

"Jill, no."

"I don't see any other options, Chris, do you?"

"Jill, you can't! We'll find a way, I don't know how yet, but not like this!"

I pulled my arm from his grip. "A sidearm and a shotgun won't even tickle that thing. We're trapped in here, and it's not gonna take him long to open this room up like a Christmas present. If you have another plan, Chris, now's the time."

"Jill, think of what that stuff did to you... the pain..."

I don't know why I was so infuriated. He was only trying to look out for his partner. He cared so much. But these were things he didn't understand.

"Nobody knows better than me what this is and what it does!" I shouted, holding up the syringe. "Look, this isn't about me, and it's not about you – it's about Uroboros! If Obasanjo gets his hands on that sample, he could finish what Wesker started, and we can't let that happen, no matter what the price to either of us."

He looked defeated. I hated that I'd had to put that look on his face, but we had a job to do.

"I can't lose you again, Jill."

He wasn't talking about my getting killed; he didn't want to lose me to the P30. He didn't want to face that robot that had been forced to fight him, to know I was trapped inside my own body, screaming to get out. I softened my approach, stepping in close and putting a hand on his shoulder.

"You're not going to lose me, Chris, I promise. I'll be fine. I know what I'm doing."

"I hope so," he said with concern. We walked back to the doorway, now dented and bent, soon to be torn out. The Giant stopped his efforts to see what it was we were doing.

I fingered my sidearm. It wouldn't be of any use in this fight. "Chris, I'm gonna need your knife."

He quietly handed it to me. I pulled my knife from my pack. I'd need immediate access to both; luckily, the sheath for each knife had two convenient straps. I strapped a knife to each of my exposed thighs.

"Ready?" he asked. I nodded.

He started pumping shotgun blasts into the thing's face. It didn't cause a lot of damage, but it was enough to make the Giant stumble back from the sting. It backed up enough for me to squeeze through; I saw my opening and I dove through, rolling into the room behind him and coming up to my feet in one fluid move.

_Okay, Jill. Do it._

I popped the cap off the syringe, put my thumb on the plunger and stabbed myself in the neck as hard as I could.

_Oh, damn, I forgot how much this hurts._

That too-familiar agony returned to me - the explosive burning that flooded my head, radiating out to my entire body. I screamed. It must have been quite a scream, because the giant was stunned into inaction.

And then the pain melted away, and once again I was awake.

Two knives. Two hands.

_This just might work._

The giant's confusion did not last long - he charged me, shoving desks aside like toys. I flipped backwards as he came at me, keeping just out of his reach. Finally I landed cat-like on two feet. A swing of his left hand came at me - I leaned backwards in a way that might have won me a Limbo contest. Then his right, and I dropped and rolled sideways to dodge it. Not my best move, apparently. As I sprung to my feet, I encountered his next attack - a forward kick that mashed me right into the wall.

"Jill!" I heard Chris scream, distracting my foe.

Without the P30, that kick would have left me as nothing more than a stain. As it was, it hurt like hell, driving me deep into the drywall, but the wall took more far damage than I did. I fell out of the wall, landing in a crouch, steadying myself with my hands, feeling the pain fade as quickly as it had arrived.

_Okay, you son of a bitch. If that's the best you can do, let me show you something better._

Chris' distraction of the giant had been fleeting, and he was already turning back to me. But it was enough. I saw my opening. I bounded off a wall to get some air. He threw a backhand swat at me with his left arm, but I just leapt on and off of it like a cat. His other hand was already coming to grab me - I ducked under, grabbing his pinky with both hands and swinging upward and over like a gymnast, twisting mid-swing to land facing him, perched on his right arm like a bird. He opened his mouth to roar, but the knives were already in my hands and I launched at his face.

Two knives. Two hands. Two eyes.

I screamed like a banshee as the blades went into those black orbs, all the way to the hilt. His roar of fury turned to one of pain. I braced myself against his jaw with my feet and shoved off into a backwards aerial flip that let me land perfectly poised for the next attack. I whipped the two knives quickly to each side, to rid them of black eyeball goo.

He clawed at his face, still screaming. He was blind.

I remembered how quickly the P30 metabolized without continuous injection and realized that whatever else I was going to do, I'd have to do it fast. I crouched, coiled up my strength and leapt right for his torso. The blades went in just below the ribcage, and I hung down from them, dragging them through the center of his torso and down to his crotch, like a swashbuckler descending a sail.

The rip that bissected him billowed open, revealing a pulsing, veiny mass. Las Plagas.

Now it was time for guns.

I drew my Samurai as Chris readied the Hydra. We emptied our guns into that mass, then reloaded and went at it again. I was on my last clip; I started to get a little worried.

Finally, the parasite burst in a shower of green acid and goo. The giant screamed and thrashed as if in the throes of a seizure, then leaned forward. Chris and I hadn't positioned ourselves particularly well; on instinct, I leapt to the side, grabbing him. We landed on our sides on the floor, narrowly missed by the collapsing Giant, who hammered the ground with a terrible thud. The breath left his body with a grunting sigh, and he was dead.

I climbed up off of Chris, not once taking my eyes off of the foe we had just felled, and helped Chris to his feet. I stood there, still for a second, as Chris looked at our handiwork, then looked at me.

I knew what was coming, but it still sucked. The P30 hangover hit me like a wrecking ball and I collapsed.

I blacked out momentarily, waking up in Chris' arms, much as I had in the temple of the ruins.

"Jill! You okay?"

I blinked and smiled. I was sweating, nauseous and a little shivery, but I'd be fine.

"It's good stuff," I joked. "You should try it sometime."

Chris smiled as he helped me to my feet. "I'll pass, thanks."

I steadied myself, leaning over and catching my breath, hands on my knees. "So how are we doing?"

He picked up the Hydra and took inventory. "I've got about eight shells. That's it."

I scooped up the knives to sheath them, then drew my Samurai and leaned against the wall on one shoulder. I popped out the magazine. It was the last of my clips. "I got about twelve rounds. One grenade. One remote charge."

We looked at each other. It wasn't much, but we were used to being short on ammo.

Chris put a hand on my arm, helping me to gain my footing as I pushed off of the wall. "You just tell me when you're ready."

I took a few deep breaths. I'd found the best thing for this hangover was a bit of exertion. "I'm ready now. Let's move."

He nodded. We jogged up a flight of stairs, past the enormous steaming carcass, to pursue Obasanjo.

At this point we were pretty sure we knew were Uroboros was; there was a triple-reinforced steel vault at the center of the lab, with multiple security features that were meaningless with the grid down. It would be hard to breech, but not impossible if you had a team of Las Plagas infected army engineers.

And, as we figured, the vault was pretty well guarded. Likely this meant the engineers were still working on it for Obasanjo, who was probably in there with them. These last few rounds in our weapons had to count.

We engaged ten infected soldiers in a pretty straightforward firefight; Chris was efficient with his shotgun, taking several out with a few well-placed blasts, and I got not one but two lucky headshots from the Samurai. We managed to down the force pretty quickly.

"One shell left," said Chris forlornly.

I popped out the mag. "Two rounds."

I guess we love to cut it close.

We carefully advanced and flanked the doorway leading to the secure vault area. We smelled smoke and heard drills. I whispered to Chris:

"They've already blown the locks and now they're drilling the hinges."

The drilling stopped. Chris looked at me.

"One last blast charge and they'll breech," I said. Yeah, we love to cut it close.

Chris nodded. "On my mark – go go go!"

We burst in through the smoke to see three engineers and General Obasanjo in cover around the corner from the vault. Too late. Chris threw his arms around me and brought us to the ground as the deafening blast surrounded us. Not enough to hurt us, luckily; it was a focused charge, so as not to damage the vault's contents.

We heard a creak, and the floor shook with a loud metallic slam as the door fell away.

As we got to our feet, I saw the General rush into the dark vault. "No!" I cried, drawing the attention of the engineers. They had no weapons, but that doesn't stop Las Plagas; they rushed us anyway. It took a shotgun blast and two Samurai rounds to take them down, leaving us both empty.

"Great," I said, holstering my weapon, "now what?"

Chris moved to draw his knife from the sheath at my thigh. I put a hand on his arm and shook my head. I had a better idea. I pulled out my grenade.

Slowly we approached the darkness of the vault.

A rumbling voice greeted us, the voice of the General. It was lower and more resonant – was it just the vault giving him that quality? "People like you can never win. Do you know why?"

"No, but I just know you're about to tell us," shouted Chris as I pulled the pin on the grenade.

"Because you do not have an appetite for power. In fact, when power is presented to you for the taking, you turn from it. So weak!

"And do you know why you'll never win?" I shouted back.

The voice chuckled. "Why is that?"

I looked at Chris, my inspiration, the source of my strength, my partner. Obasanjo was alone because men like him always end up alone.

"Because you don't know what power really is," I said, and I tossed in the grenade. Chris and I dove to the sides of the vault, rewarded by a blast that shook the very foundations of the facility.

We lay there on either side of the doorway, looking at each other. Was it over? Could it really be that easy?

The rumbling voice from the vault gave us our answer. "That… was rude."

With that, we heard the sickening, squelching sound of a thousand oily worms rubbing against each other. And then we saw it… the thing that had been General Obasanjo, emerging from the vault in an eruption of black slime.

Some approximation of his head and torso were at the center of it, but the rest was pure Uroboros. Formless. Structureless. Writhing and foul.

Chris and I looked at each other, knowing we had one option.

Run.

We charged through the lab as the cloud of blackness oozed after us at an alarming speed, cackling all the way.

"It's better than I ever imagined!" it said.

"We gotta lose it!" shouted Chris. We ducked into a side room that housed a maze of workstations – large machines, electron microscopes, powerful centrifuges, the tools of science. Hoping we weren't seen, we crouched down and moved as quickly as we could to a secluded cubicle near the back of the room.

The Obasanjo thing was still laughing. "You think you can hide from me? I will fill every corner of this room and choke you out!"

This was followed by an oozing and stretching sound. I dared to peek around the corner.

It was getting bigger. Stretching out like a lattice. Creeping along the walls like fast-growing ivy.

"Chris," I whispered, "we're kinda screwed."

But Chris was lost in a thousand-yard stare. I saw it in his eyes; he'd reached that same conclusion I had, those years ago, confronting Albert Wesker over the body of Ozwell Spencer. Chris had decided that whatever happened here, he would end up dead.

Chris snatched his knife from my thigh and started to get up. "When I say run, you run!"

_Oh no you don't, Redfield._

I had one last play.

I hated to do it, but I didn't have time to argue. I stood up and drove my knee right into his chin. Stunned, he fell back. It was my opening. I turned and ran right at the center of the thing that hunted us.

"Jill!" cried Chris, regaining his wits. "No!!!!"

I relished the look of surprise and confusion on Obasanjo's face as I ran straight at him, shouting at the top of my lungs. Reaching my top speed, I dove right into the center of his black tangled body.

Now that I've had the experience, I can say one thing with complete certainty: Being completely covered by Uroboros is just about the foulest thing you can possibly imagine. The smell… the taste… the texture. It is like being buried in a grave of maggots. It is the living embodiment of rot and corruption. And all it wants to do is infect you.

Which is why it really comes in handy to have an immune system comprised of powerful antibodies that it can't tolerate.

There was an initial tightness, a probing, as it tried to infect me, to figure out how to become a part of me. But that quickly gave way to a strange sense that it was recoiling from me, trying to escape me, pained by this awful thing inside it.

Imagine that. As I'd hoped, I was toxic to Uroboros.

At first I couldn't move at all, but once Uroboros had gotten a taste of me and declared me off the menu, I had a bit of literal wiggle room. I struggled to detach the straps from my pack, then reached down for my knife.

_Fine. You want me out of you? Let me help._

I started slicing with all my strength. If it was upset before, now it was seriously pissed. I was surrounded by a sizzling scream of pain. My lungs burned from lack of breath, but I pressed on, pushing forward with my legs, hacking at the black mass in front of me with all the force I could muster. Finally I sensed light and smelled something like air.

I didn't need to push anymore. I was expelled like a cannonball. Uroboros spit me out.

I felt strong hands drag my prone body as I coughed up black oil and gasped huge lungfuls of air. I feared I would never get this taste and smell out of my head. The scream of the creature lingered, then started to trail off. I stopped moving; I pawed black goo out of my eyes and tried to sit up. Chris was there next to me, having dragged me to a corner behind a sink.

"Valentine," he asked, "what the hell was that?"

I didn't have time to answer when a pained voice filled the room. "Do you think that hurt me? That was nothing to me!" I ventured to peer around the corner. The Obasanjo thing was sagging like a party deflated pool toy, but it was rising quickly.

"And now," it continued, "if you are done with your foolishness, I believe it is time to say your prayers."

"Fine," I replied. "May God forgive you."

I fumbled for the remote detonator that was clipped to my belt, ripped it off, and jammed the button with my thumb.

Inside Uroboros, you see, there was a backpack. Inside the backpack, there was a brick of C4 - and one last remote detonator charge.

The room filled with blinding light and deafening sound. The walls were coated with black oil. General Obasanjo was no more, and he'd taken the last known sample of Uroboros with him.

We waited, still and quiet, fearing to move until we were sure we were alone in the room.

Soon, the sound of spatter and settling debris had faded, and all that was left was the sound of our heavy breathing.

Chris looked at me, rubbing his chin but smiling. I smiled back, the detonator falling from my hand.

"You know what?" he finally said playfully, pointing to his chin. "Didn't hurt."

"Oh, no?" I replied, still quite breathless.

"Nah," he continued. "Guess that's one move you're going to have to work on."

"I guess so," I said, climbing to my feet. I looked down at myself; I could have passed for someone who'd been wrestling in motor oil. Chris, now on his feet, didn't look much better after the massive splatter that had coated the room. We surveyed the mess that had been made. Seemed like a good day's work to me.


	32. XXXI: Cleanup

We heard voices and bootsteps. Initially I tensed for action, but I quickly realized that these were the sounds of healthy human soldiers. I recognized one of the voices as belonging to Captain Pyke. I was glad he was there with the soldiers to tell them to lower their guns when they saw Chris and me, coated in black goo, not looking too different from the threat they'd been told they might face.

Pyke approached us as the men secured the room. "Sit rep, agents?"

Chris answered. "All hostiles eliminated."

Pyke seemed surprised but not overly so. He spoke into a walkie-talkie: "Lab is secure." Releasing the button, he turned back to us. "General Obasanjo?"

Chris gestured at the walls. "You're going to have to have maintenance paint over him."

Pyke looked around, his eyes wide. He seemed like the type that was hard to impress, but he was impressed.

It was Chris's turn to ask questions. "What's the situation outside?'

Pyke shook his head. "I managed to get to Huntersville and mobilize police and SWAT forces, get the national guard down here. Edgewater is gone. We don't know the details, but we think that Obasanjo managed to get the drop on one solider to infect him, then used the soldier to help him infect more. It quickly degenerated into open warfare at Edgewater, and the Las Plagas force won. A lot of uninfected soldiers were killed, but they took a lot of infected with them, leaving the General with about a hundred Las Plagas troops. When he moved in to take BSAA, he left a small force of about twenty at the base, but they've been taken out. As far as we can tell, all the Las Plagas troops have been wiped out."

Jesus. How many troops had been at Edgewater – five hundred? The General had wiped out an entire Army base with a single injection.

"Okay," he finally said. "We've got decontamination shower tents set up outside for both of you, medical on site to look you over, and then, if you're up to it, I'd like to hear just what happened."

Chris looked at me and I nodded. We started to head out as Pyke began issuing orders: get hazmat in there, get forensics teams standing by, all of that. Whatever happens when Chris and I are done with our share of the work. I never took much interest in those particular details.

Decon showers aren't particularly fun, but I've had my share and they go quickly enough. My dress uniform ruined, I was provided a replacement. The kind of outfit I'm generally more comfortable with, in fact: blue pullover and tactical pants. We didn't give medical much to do except put salve on a few scrapes, then we headed over to the trailer that was serving as Pyke's provisional HQ, and told him the whole story. He couldn't have been more wide-eyed if he was a kid hearing a ghost story over a campfire.

This debrief, luckily, didn't last nearly as long as the post-African interrogation – it was a basic accounting of the incident and our actions, which perfectly matched all evidence and surveillance footage. We were done within the hour. Finally Pyke dismissed the second agent taking the debrief and spoke to us personally and off the record.

"Look, I'm going to tell it to you straight, and if you repeat this, I'll deny it up and down: we screwed up. I screwed up. I should have fought harder against maintaining those samples on-site. If I had, a lot of good people might not have died today."

Chris backed down from his earlier antagonism – it wasn't Pyke he held accountable, it was the system. "Jill and I have been fighting that fight for years, Captain. The temptation from these bio-weapons is pretty powerful, even for people who should know better, the people in charge. People like us, all we can do is keep watch and be prepared when the worst happens."

Pyke nodded, but I could see the burden he now carried. He'd have to find a way to forgive himself. "I don't know if you call it right place, right time or wrong place, wrong time, but it's a hell of a good thing you two were here today."

Chris and I looked at each other with that invisible smile only partners can see. Neither of us could have done what we did alone, and neither of us could have done it with anyone else in the world.

Pyke cleared his throat. "So, Agent Valentine, I have one more question for you."

I looked at him expectantly.

"How would you feel about returning to active duty?"

That was not the question I was expecting.

Thrown off, I stammered my response. "But… but I've been out of the field for so long… Won't there be tests and evaluations and re-training?"

He rubbed his neck. "Yeah, about that. See, when you were in the detention center… the workout equipment? The doctors? The counselors?"

He couldn't be serious. "That was you?"

"Not just me. I'm not the only one who's read your jacket – you're among the best agents in the world for this sort of work, and the threat posed by BOWs never sleeps, not for a moment. So, we pulled a few strings, found some funding to, uh, upgrade the detention center. I got all the reports myself, and you received extremely high proficiency and readiness ratings. Basically, everything you did there we can count towards reinstatement. I figured, why waste your time in there? I'm sorry we couldn't tell you about it."

I couldn't believe they would do this for me. "No, no… that was what made the time bearable."

"So what do you say? There are no major operations at the moment, but we do have some intel on a small terror cell in Saskatchewan that's linked up with some unusual names in bio-engineering."

Chris looked at me expectantly, but knew enough not to be pushy, so he held his tongue.

"I'm so grateful for this opportunity, Agent Pyke, but I'll have to take some time, think it over."

"I understand completely, Agent Valentine. Take all the time you need. When you're ready, just give me a call and I'll have your badge ready and waiting."

If Chris was disappointed, he didn't show it. "Well, if there's nothing else, Agent Pyke, my partner and I should get out of your way."

Pyke nodded and extended a warm handshake to both of us. "Thank you both again for everything you've done."

"Thank you, Captain Pyke" I said, holding the handshake a bit longer than usual. Whatever his mistakes, he was a good man, and the BSAA was better off with him than without. I smiled, and Chris and I turned to leave.

I knew I'd be seeing this place again pretty soon.

As we were walking out to the hill where Chris had parked his car, my partner broke the pensive silence.

"You haven't lost a step, Valentine."

I smiled. We had been incredible together, fighting Obasanjo and his men. It wasn't pride or braggadocio. It was a simple fact. We had been ruthlessly efficient. I had this image in my head of Chris and I like two old jazz musicians, delightfully playing in unison, riffing off of each other as though we were psychic. Greater than the sum of our parts. Better together than either of us could ever hope to be without the other.

I couldn't help ribbing a little. "Yeah, well, next time, try to keep up."

Chris chuckled. "Will do." I knew he knew I was kidding. I knew he knew I was telling him he was the best and that I was proud to fight by his side. Partners develop their own language.

We climbed into Chris's car. He tore up some dirt getting us out of there. I watched BSAA headquarters shrink in the rearview mirror through a cloud of yellow desert dust, then focused my attention on the horizon, looking ahead without fear for the first time in a long time.


	33. Epilogue: Drive

As we started our journey back to civilization, I suddenly realized that, in all the drama and excitement and chaos, I hadn't considered one rather important thing.

"Hey Chris… you know what? I don't have anywhere to go, do I?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, what happened to my apartment after I was declared dead?"

"Oh. Yeah. You hadn't left a will, or much evidence of your intentions regarding the, uh, disposition of your estate. So I found a talented and unscrupulous lawyer, and we broke a few laws to have me declared the sole beneficiary."

"Oh my God, you did not! I can't believe it! How many felonies was that?"

He grinned sheepishly. "Well, uh, several." My partner, the by-the-book crusader, a federal fraudster! I hadn't thought it possible to admire him any more than I already did, but God bless him for proving me wrong. "So, anyway, I took over the management of your estate and affairs. I kept your apartment just as it was for as long as I could, but eventually the landlord declined to renew the lease, so I had to put all your things put into storage. They may be a bit dusty, but they're all there waiting for you. And as far as your finances, I took over all your accounts and investments as well."

"Oh great," I joked. "Please tell me you didn't wipe me out."

"You're actually in pretty good shape. Or, I should say, I am. It is in my name, after all."

I punched his arm. "I don't care what that lawyer of yours says, you're giving it all back!"

He laughed, "Okay, okay."

"Well, thank you for doing all that, but I still don't have a home, a place to go, you know?"

"Don't worry about that. You can crash at my place while you figure out what to do. You can take the bed, I'll be fine on the couch."

"No way! After all you did for me, I'm not kicking you out of your own bed! The couch will be fine for me."

"All I did for you? You dove out a window to save my life! The way my math works out, I still owe you!"

We were kidding. There was no accounting of who owed who what. Partners don't work like that.

"Well, I don't care what you say," I said resolutely, "I'm not taking the bed."

He looked over at me thoughtfully and replied, "Okay. How about this: bedrolls on my hard, cold kitchen floor."

I couldn't help but laugh. "Just like the Ukraine, 2002!"

"Yeah, just like the Ukraine, 2002. Only not quite as cold and with better food." We'd been following up some leads that were taking us closer to Umbrella, and of course we managed to ruffle a few feathers and overturn some rocks whose inhabitants didn't care much for the disinfecting quality of sunlight. So, our base of operations was an abandoned apartment building on a hill. A long-abandoned tunnel took us right to the back door. Secret, unexpected, good lines of sight, plenty of escape options – as tactically sound as we could manage. The kitchen was the most central room of the apartment we'd chosen, which allowed us to create a reasonably secure perimeter. The accommodations weren't great, but it was nothing a little vodka couldn't take the edge off of. Sounds weird, but I looked back on it fondly.

Field agents are kind of odd when it comes to nostalgia, I guess.

"Okay, it's a deal," I answered. Chris nodded, glad to have it settled.

I thought about the Ukraine for a bit, and I looked at the sidearm Chris had given me, holstered at my hip.

For as long as I can remember, all I wanted in the whole world was to be able to stand on my own two feet. I needed to be seen as capable, as independent, as reliable. I worked my ass off, I worked as hard as I possibly could to be the best of the best. It was how I defined myself, how I gave purpose to my life. I told myself that it was okay if others needed me, but I wasn't allowed to need anybody. That would be a sign of weakness.

Now, I knew Chris cared about me. I mean, come on, he moved heaven and earth to rescue me from hell. But what really terrified me, what kept me up nights, was the thought that he might someday realize he wanted to protect me, to keep me safe. Because that would mean doubt, doubt in my abilities as an agent and as a partner. Somewhere inside, I feared that if I lost that trust, everything I had worked so hard for would be gone and I'd lose myself.

But without even thinking about it, Chris himself had handed me that gun at my side, asking me to help him face down a monstrous threat that could have consumed countless lives. And it dawned on me just what that meant. It meant I didn't have to hide anything from him, that in fact it would be foolish to try. Chris knew me for who I was, not who I wanted him to think I was. And he didn't think I needed protecting. It's a funny thing: when a man gives you a gun, he sure as hell isn't telling you he wants to shield you from the big bad world. Actually, it means quite the opposite: it means he wants to share that world with you, both the good and the bad, side by side. It means he might need a little protecting himself from time to time.

And as I put all this together, for the first time in a long time, I felt free. Not just free from Wesker's control. Not just free of bio-terror, of Umbrella. I was finally free from the cage I'd kept myself in for so long. I didn't have to cut myself off from my basic humanity, not anymore. I didn't have to lie to Chris, to pretend to be someone I wasn't. I hadn't realized just how tightly I was clinging to this burden, or just how hard it had been to bear, until I let go at that moment. I felt like I was floating, gently bobbing in the soothing currents of a calm ocean. I thought I could even smell the salty sea air.

"Chris," I said, "pull over."

"What? Is everything all right?"

"Everything's fine, I just want you to pull over for a little while."

Chris pulled over onto the shoulder, put the car in park and looked at me. There was some confusion in his eyes, but mostly he was just ready for whatever was about to happen.

I couldn't hold it in any longer: I started to cry. And I mean full-body convulsions. I collapsed into Chris's arms a quivering mess. I just let it all come out. I relived every moment: the pain, the humiliation, the terror, the innocent lives taken by my own hands. I saw, heard, felt everything. Drills piercing my chest. Mosi's blood stinging my eyes. Necks I'd snapped. Villagers being turned inside-out by Uroboros. I was screaming at the top of my lungs. And through it all, Chris knew exactly what to do: he just sat there quietly, gently rocking me, as an embarrassing stream of tears and snot ruined his shirt. Soon the screams turned to sobs and the convulsions to shivers, and then all turned to silence. I had nothing left in me. I just passed out.

* * *

The creeping sun woke me up just after daybreak. I gathered we were still in the spot where we'd parked, only now we were in the back seat. Somehow Chris had managed to transfer me back there without waking me up. For such a musclehead, he sure did have a gentle touch when he needed it. I realized I was half curled up in his lap as I noticed the conspicuous absence of that shirt I'd ruined. I could feel the creases in my face where I'd been pressed against the wrinkles of his pants. A bit of movement and grunting told me Chris was starting to come around too.

"Oh God," I muttered, a bit of unnecessary embarrassment flooding me due to my long habits of perfect self-control. I mean, yes, I'm a woman. I'm not trying not to be. Heck, some of the things I used to wear, I think back and can only conclude I was being dressed by horny nerds. But crying myself to sleep? Come on, that would be girly even for Shirley Temple.

Chris just laughed it off. "Don't worry; I should get the feeling back in my legs in a few hours or so."

I started to sit up and work the kinks out. "Hey partner, could you do me a favor?"

"What's that?"

"Could you smash all the mirrors before I accidentally get a glimpse of how I look this morning?"

He chuckled. "You'd be surprised how not awful you look."

A playful mood came over me from out of nowhere. "Hey, you're not flirting with me, are you Redfield? You know the BSAA has regulations about that sort of conduct."

I'd hoped to make him blush a little, to get the upper hand, but he came back with: "Valentine, believe me, when I start flirting with you, you'll know it."

I just flashed him what I hoped was a mischievous and enigmatic smile. It was really my only play.

"So," he said, keys in hand, "how about some breakfast?"

I realized I was famished. "Breakfast sounds perfect. I'm thinking gypsy skillet."

"Well, let's hit the road then."

He climbed out of his side and I climbed out of mine so we could take our places in the front. He fired up the engine and we were on our way. FOOD AND GAS, 15 MILES. I had a good feeling that the FOOD mentioned on the sign was more than just processed egg sandwiches and factory-pressed potato patties.

"So," he said, shaking off a yawn, "what do you think? About returning to active duty, I mean."

I didn't have an answer for that. Actually, I knew the answer would be "yes," I just wanted to hold onto it for a little while. I guess I was savoring the uncertainly of the moment, or at least the pretense.

"How about we start with that gypsy skillet and take it from there?"

He grinned. "Fair enough, partner."

Partners. Yeah, we're partners, Chris and me. It's complicated.

His right hand found my left. Our fingers laced and we squeezed each other's hand as the bright yellow desert sped past us. I smiled and meant it.

* * *

_Thank you for reading "No Cage Worse." I'd love to hear what you thought of the story, especially if you made it this far :) Your review is greatly appreciated. - Mr. Penbrook_


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